Teaching writing skills online

Lidiya Simak
YL DOS, CELTA, CELT-P/S trainer
Grade Education Centre
Why do we write?
Why did people start writing at all?
- to remember important information
- to send a message
- to make an agreement and document it
Why do we write nowadays?
- same reasons plus
- to share our ideas/thoughts
- to achieve a certain aim (complaint, advert, love letter)
Writing is communication! And we write because there is a reader
Do you like writing?
Do you like writing?

Do you write a lot in your everyday life?

What do you write? Is it difficult? Why/ why not?

What is difficult for you to write? Why?

Why is writing difficult?

Unlike speaking, which we learn to do early on in life and which requires

little effort, writing does not occur naturally. It has to be learnt in some kind
of systematic way.
 Why is writing difficult?
You need:
- to settle down and get started
- to concentrate
- ideas
- to find the way to formulate this idea clearly
- time.
You don’t have immediate feedback like in speaking
You have to:
- use the right tone and style and make the right impression on your
reader
- write correctly (grammar, spelling)
- rewrite something.
You might:
- lack motivation
- have difficulties with language
- lack knowledge of the world (especially teenage writers)
- lack the knowledge of genre
Writing is dull comparing to speaking
 Why is writing difficult?
You need: Motivate learners by setting
- to settle down and get started up engaging and relevant
- to concentrate writing tasks
- ideas
- to find the way to formulate this idea clearly Provide language input and
- time. familiarize students with
You don’t have immediate feedback like in speaking features of genre
You have to:
Brainstorming, help with
- use the right tone and style and make the right impression on your
reader ideas
- write correctly (grammar, spelling)
- rewrite something.
You might:
- lack motivation
- have difficulties with language
- lack knowledge of the world (especially teenage writers)
- lack the knowledge of genre
Writing is dull comparing to speaking
What is the structure of a writing lesson?
Product writing
1. Lead-in
2. Familiarizing with a model text
3. Focus on useful language/genre features
4. Focus on structure
5. Focus on a reader
6. Preparation for writing
7. Writing a piece
8. Checking
9. Feedback on content
10. Feedback on language
Knowledge of genre
• layout, content and language
• appropriate content
• clear purpose (with the reader in mind)
• appropriate organisation of ideas, with
logically developed points in paragraphs
• appropriate lay-out according to convention
with clear spacing, paragraphing.
Knowledge of language
• style appropriate to the genre (e.g.
contractions, phrasal verbs, colloquialisms
in a letter to a friend)
• using appropriate lexis and grammar,
spelling
• appropriate use of cohesive devices (using
linkers, avoiding repetition, etc)
• punctuation
Feedback on content
Who gives feedback on content?
When? How?

- students give feedback to each

other
- the initial purpose for writing
becomes the purpose for
reading
- students assess
communicative achievement
and effect on a reader
Feedback on language
Who gives feedback on language?
When? How?

- the teacher gives FB on language

- collect samples of students’ written language while they are writing
- provide delayed error collection after feedback on content
So, how do we teach them online?

• Use online means to help you monitor while students are producing
- Google docs
- padlet
- jamboard
- messengers
Using messengers
Using messengers
Developmental feedback
● stimulate students to check their own writing using checklists
● create personalised checklists
● build up on existing knowledge
● draft - teach - improve