Teaching Second Language Writing: Interacting with Text

reviewed by Gulistan Akmugan, Turkey

Gulistan Akmugan has been teaching English as a foreign language to Turkish students ranging from young learners to young adults for more than 20 years. She is currently working at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. She is interested in finding out ways to help her students become effective communicators in English.
E-mail: gulmugan@yahoo.com

Teaching Second Language Writing
Cherry Campbell (Author)
Heinle & Heinle Publishers
ISBN: 978-7560039114

Being one of the strong supporters of Life–Long Learning Philosophy, I would like to offer my special thanks to Professional Development Unit, which has contributed greatly to my personal development by giving me the chance to go over and evaluate my effectiveness on how to urge my students to write. As we all know, writing is the most painful and demanding skill of all since it requires productivity rather than being receptive. To be able to express opinions and feelings efficiently, the learner should gain the habit of organizing his/her ideas first and then be able to write by using the rules of the language he is trying to acquire.

‘Teaching Second Language Writing’ aiming to teach a variety of writing strategies is based on the philosophy that writing should be taught in conjunction with social and cultural aspects and expectations. It includes chapters on approaches to teaching writing, needs analysis, syllabus design, lesson planning, task design, materials development, feedback and assessment, on using technology in writing classes and in conducting research. As it is recognized, teachers can develop more by reflecting on their own learning and teaching experiences than acquiring theoretical knowledge about teaching and Teaching Second-Language Writing focuses on three independent perspectives; Teachers’ Voices which are authentic accounts of teachers’ experiences, Frameworks which are comprehensive discussions of theoretical issues and Investigations, which are inquiry-based activities.

Teachers’ Voices section tells stories teachers have experienced in classes or how they felt towards writing when they were students. While I was reading the stories in the Teachers’ Voices corner of the first chapter, I remembered how I used to feel uncomfortable when I didn’t know how and what to write on a topic and it helped me to form a kind of empathy with my students. Frameworks parts of each chapter, provide background information from the teaching profession and Investigations parts direct the teacher to ponder over different ideas.

I have learned many things about how to urge my students to write and how their work and effort can be evaluated best by me and how I can help them gain a vantage point in writing from this book. As a teacher the biggest problem I have with my students in writing lessons is to make them believe the importance of writing and to motivate them to write a paragraph or an essay on a specific topic. The reasons why they don’t favour writing is because they find it difficult and to be able to write on a special issue, the writer should have some kind of information which can only be obtained by reading , searching and keeping up with current events . If the student is not interested in what is going on around, naturally writing becomes a pain for him. I am inclined to believe that the necessity of writing should be perceived by students by giving them direct or indirect messages.

I now know that first of all I should convince them to have an outline of whatever they are supposed to write, even if they are asked to write a simple paragraph. If they do not know what they are going to write for or against or If they do not know what the topic sentence or the thesis statement they are writing about and how to support their opinion, they will get lost and after a while they will hate writing but if they learn how to organize their opinions, writing will be an impressive way of expressing their perception of life to others.

I have also learned that feedback has a vital importance on developing students’ writing skill. If the type of feedback (written feedback, conferencing or peer correction) is done properly students can see their weak points and try to develop them and they become more aware of writing process. When they peer check they develop an approach to their own peer’s work (criticizing or praising).The role of teacher while they are peer-checking should be to facilitate, consult and trouble shoot.

I know now that computer literacy is a part of what language teachers are responsible to teach because reading and writing are authentic tasks when there is an actual audience besides the language teacher. The internet provides a rich source of authentic language.

I strongly recommend this book to all language teachers and teacher trainers since it serves the purpose of enlightening teachers about how to help learners to invest in their future studies.

Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.