ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY

Graduate School
Summer, 2021

Written Report

Considerations for
Teaching an
ESL/EFL Writing
Course
(Barbara Kroll)

Prepared by: Cristian D. Paderes

This chapter discusses the considerations for teaching an ESL or EFL writing course. Plenty

of approaches, techniques, and activities were discussed. Writing is a difficult topic to teach, and

yet it is one of the most essential skills that every student must hone. Students produce written

texts that are expected to exhibit increasingly advanced levels of proficiency as the student

writer’s progress through a curriculum, and teachers must make choices about how various

learning experiences will promote this goal. The following are the two most central components

of writing: the first are the writing assignments that students are asked to do and the second is the

method or methods of feedback provided to learners on their evolving writing skills. Writers

need to write in order to hone their skills in the classroom. Without feedback opportunities in a

writing course, there is no reason for students to attend the class in the first place. Thus, the

constants of a writing course should include teacher-planned lessons, presentation of writing

assignments, student-written texts, and feedback on writing.

The chapter also discussed a short historical background of how teaching writing techniques

evolved over time. However, in our reporting, we only briefly touched on this area as most of it

is anchored in the West. We only took some concepts that may be relevant to teachers in the

class. The first approach is the traditional paradigm or the product approach. Teachers who

follow this model usually focus on evaluating student essays. Before the mid-1960s, teaching

writing to native English speakers at the high school and college levels mostly focused on

responding in writing to literary texts. The teaching model during this time used the following

steps. First, instructing the students in principles of rhetoric and organization, presented as

“rules” for writing. Then, providing a text for classroom discussion, analysis, and interpretation.
Afterwards, requiring a writing assignment based on the text. Finally, reading, commenting on,

and criticizing student papers prior to beginning the next assignment.

When teaching an ESL or EFL writing course, plenty of factors are considered, which will be

elaborated in our report outline. It is important for teachers to be knowledgeable about what

approaches to teach in class and what the writing level of the students are. As I previously

mentioned, the writing class is one of the most vital courses in education because it is a skill that

is needed by students in their every subject. Their writing skill will constantly be put to the test

no matter where they are and even if they graduate and get a job. Therefore, as a teacher, it is our

duty to create a solid foundation for student writers in order to help them in writing in English.
 REPORT OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

Two Most Central Components of Writing:

1. Writing assignments that students are asked to do

2. The method(s) of feedback provided to learners on their evolving writing skills

Constants of a Writing Course:

1. Teacher-planned lessons

2. Presentation of writing assignments

3. Student-written texts

4. Feedback on writing

BUILDING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

The Traditional Paradigm/Product Approach:

-Focuses on evaluating student essays

1. Instruct the students in principles of rhetoric and organization, presented as “rules” for

writing

2. Provide a text for classroom discussion, analysis, and interpretation

3. Require a writing assignment based on the text

4. Read, comment on, and criticize student papers prior to beginning the next assignment

“Controlled” Composition:

-Written tasks were not meant to elicit interpretive commentary on texts

-Was meant to serve primarily as reinforcement of language rules

-Writing task was tightly controlled in order to reduce the possibility for error

“Think Aloud” Procedure (Janet Emig, late 1960s):

-For collecting information about student writing processes

-The ways in which student writers produce text do not necessarily match the model that had

been traditionally promulgated

textbook writers and not based on analyses of writers at work

Process Approach/Process Classroom:

-Contrasts Product Approach

-Promoted a learner-centered classroom

-Serve in present time as an umbrella term for many types of writing courses

-Students are not expected to produce and submit complete and polished responses to their

writing assignments without going through the stages of drafting and receiving feedback on their

drafts, followed by revisions of their evolving texts

THE WRITING PROCESS: ESTABLISHING CURRICULUM PRINCIPLES

For beginning or intermediate level language learners…

Writing activities that involve a variety of grammatical manipulations, the imitation of

models constructed for teaching purposes, preparation of short texts using material supplied to

the student writer, and practice in self-expression for its own sake help students acquire

familiarity with the nature of English-language texts and in laying the groundwork for more

complex writing tasks to follow.

Their writing activity should involve working on the creation of self-generated complete

texts.

THE WRITING CLASS: Syllabus Design

Teachers need to consider the following:

1. How much writing students are expected to complete during the term, divided into less

formal work such as assignments

2. What the timelines and deadlines are for working on and completing papers

3. How many of the formal writing assignments will be done in class as “timed” pieces

4. What aspects of the composing process will be presented

5. What aspects of English grammar and syntax, if any, will be directly addressed in class

6. What will be seen to constitute “progress” in acquiring improved writing skills as the

term moves along

7. How much reading will be covered

8. How the student’s grade or a decision of credit/no credit will be determined

academic essays through mastering techniques for getting started and generating ideas, drafting

papers which they will anticipate revising, and learning to utilize feedback provided by the

teacher and other students in the class to improve the writing assignment at hand.

Goal of every course: Individual student progress in writing proficiency

Goal of the total curriculum: Student writers learn to become informed and independent

readers of their own texts with the ability to create, revise, and reshape papers to meet the need

of whatever writing tasks they are assigned

TECHNIQUES FOR GETTING STARTED

The Prewriting Stage:

1. Brainstorming: a group exercise in which all students in the class are encouraged to

participate by sharing their collective knowledge about a particular subject

2. Listing: can be a quiet and essentially individual activity; the student is encouraged to

produce as lengthy a list as possible of all the main ideas and subcategories that come to

mind as they think about the topic at hand

3. Clustering: begins without a key word or central idea placed in the center of a page

around which the student quickly jots down all of the free-associations triggered by the

subject matter, using words or short phrases

speakers break through the difficulty of getting started; students write for a specified

period of time without taking their pen from the page

USING READINGS IN THE WRITING CLASS

-Readings serve some very practical purposes in the writing class, particularly for English

language learners who have less fluency in the language.

-Readings provide models of what English language texts look like and provide input that help

students develop awareness of the English language prose style.

-The ESL writing class can incorporate lessons which assist students in preparing academic

writing assignments by using readings as a basis to practice skills such as summarizing,

paraphrasing, interpreting, and synthesizing concepts.

-ESL/EFL writing teachers are strongly advised to include a reading component in their classes.

-Readings provide models of what English language texts look like.

- They provide input that helps student develop awareness of English language prose style.

- Writing tasks assigned by many professors require students to do a great deal of reading in

order to synthesize and analyze academic material in particular content areas (Hale et al. 1996).

-From another perspective, however, readings can be problematic if a teacher uses the topic or

content area of the readings to turn a generic writing course into a class in the subject matter area

of the readings.
WRITING ASSIGNEMENTS

The objective of any writing class is to have students work on their writing. All assignments and

the topics they contain must be carefully designed, sequenced, and structured.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN SELECTING TOPICS FOR WRITING

1. Philosophy about teaching as proposed by the textbook in use.

2. Topics which are deemed appropriate by the teacher on the basis of a felt inner sense.

3. What the teacher values as good writing, and the way in which writers learn.

RHETORICAL PATTERNS APPROACH

-Assignments along these lines ask students to create or plug in content according to a specified

manner of presentation.

SIX GUIDLINES FOR PREPARATION OF SUCCESFUL WRITING

1. Clear Context

[Link] Content

3. Un-ambiguous, Comprehensible, Transparent

4. Focused task

5. Rhetorical Specifications (CUES) should provide clear direction

6. Identified Value Criteria

1. RESPONDING

Key questions:

1. What are the general goals for providing feedback?

2. What are the specific goals for providing feedback?

3. When to offer feedback?

4. What form should feedback take?

5. Who should provide the feedback?

6. What should students do with the feedback?

2. GOAL-SETTING

- Responding to student writing has the general goal of fostering student improvement.

3. SHAPING FEEDBACK

- Students must also be trained to use the feedback in ways that will improve their writing.

FORMS OF FEEDBACK

1. ORAL TEACHER FEEDBACK

- ELLs in a writing class need to have individual conferences with their teacher even more

than native speaker students do.

2. PEER RESPONSE

- When the use of peer response became an early key component of teaching writing as

process in the L1 environment, many ESL/EFL teachers embraced the idea of having

students read and/or listen to each other's papers for the purpose of providing feedback.
3. ERROR CORRECTION

- Regardless of which agenda the writing teacher sets and the number of drafts that

students produce, the papers that ELLs write are likely to exhibit problems in language

control. The role of editing, when seen as distinct from rewriting, is essentially working

to eliminate grammatical problems and stylistic infelicities.

WAYS TO CALL STUDENTS' ATTENTION

1. Point out specific errors by using a mark in the margin or an arrow or other symbolic

system.

2. To correct (or model) specific errors by writing in the corrected form.

3. To label specific errors according to the feature they violate.

4. To indicate the presence of error but not the precise location. e.g, noting that there are

problems with word forms.

5. Use a combination of two or more of these methods, depending on what they perceive to

be the needs of the student.

CONCLUSION

Producing a successful written text is a complex task which requires simultaneous control over a

number of language systems as well as an ability to factor in considerations of the ways the

discourse must be shaped for a particular audience and a particular purpose. Teaching ESL/EFL

students to become successful writers, able to weigh and factor in all of these issues, is an

especially complex task.