Teaching the four skills:

Writing

MARIA JUAN maria.juan@uib.eu

(based on various sources)
Task: Teaching SS to write

´ How is writing different from reading? Which is

more demanding?
´…
´…
´…
´ What is difficult about writing?
´…
´…
´…
´ How can we help SS to write?
´…
´…
´…
Things to consider 1

´Your pupils’ writing skills may be at very

different stages of development
´Writing consists of motor & language
skills which young children are still
developing (e.g. hand coordination)
´If they can read & write in their L1, that
will be helpful
´Free writing develops very slowly
´Do not expect SS to write freely what
they cannot say freely
 Things to consider 2

´ Your pupils’ age

´ Their degree of familiarity with Roman script
´ When writing, children need to pay
attention to various things:
´Develop finger control & be tidy
´Form letters
´Become familiar with the relationship
between sound & spelling in English (e.g.
aisle/ail)
´Keep the picture of the letters in their minds
´Learn when to use capital letters and how to
punctuate
Connecting reading & writing

Reading activities Writing activities

Matching words with pictures Copy the word(s) that

match(es) the picture
Labelling pictures or objects Write a label

Predicting from initial sounds Finish the word st--

Re-arrange jumbled letters to Write the whole word

make a word
Ordering sentences in the Write out the story in the right
correct sequence order

´ Like the other skills, writing is about meaning

´ Early writing activities (e.g. copying & tracing) are useful
´ Using computers implies learning the keyboard skills
´ Whatever the writing focus is, children should enjoy it
Matching words with pictures
Labelling pictures or objects
Predicting from initial sounds

st-- star
fri--- friend
spi--- spider
mag-- magic
tea---- teacher
str--- strong
Rearrange letters to make a word
A writing race

T: Ok. Two teams over here. Good!

Eh, Keiko what is your team’s
name?
Keiko: Pink.
T: Ok, the pink team. And Maya
what is your team’s name?
Maya: Orange.
T: You’re going to write the ABC.
One person at a time in each
team, a first & then back to the
end of the line & the next one
writes b until you’re finished (z).
1, 2, 3… go!
Writing the alphabet

´ Practise letter shapes by

´ Tracing over dotted (---) letters
´ Tracing the shape in the air
´ called “air writing”

´ “Palm writing”: feel the shape

& say the letter

´ “Back writing”: feel the shape

& write the letter
 From speaking to writing 1

´ REMEMBER children should write about what they have

talked about or read about
´ You can use listening, speaking & reading as a basis for
writing
´ PERSONAL PRESENTATION (Slattery & Willis 2001, p.62)
´ T: Ok, now start with your name and where you live
´ Haruka: My name is Haruka. I live in Ena.
´ T: Good. And brothers and sisters?
´ Haruka: I have two brothers
´ T: And what do you like?
´ Haruka: I like comics and cartoons.
´ T: Ok, now tell us again. Put it all together… name, where you live,
brothers, what you like, OK…
´ Haruka: My name is Haruka. I live in Ena. I have two brothers,
´ T: And you like?
´ Haruka: I like comics and cartoons
´ T: Very good!
From speaking to writing 2

´When children finish this kind of activity in

which several SS have talked about
themselves, you can ask them to write in
pairs and…
´Write down two descriptions they remember
´They don’t write the name of the St, just the
description, e.g. She has two brothers & no
sisters. She likes comics & cartoons. Who is
she?
´They can read it out (or give it to another
group to read) & let the others guess who it is
Extension ideas

´Memory game
´Children in pairs can write the same
descriptions, but leave one or two gaps
(---), instead of writing the words. They
pass it to another pair to read and fill in
´Question & answer
´A pair of children write, on a piece of
paper, two or three Qs about a pic the
whole class will see. The T briefly shows
the pic & takes it down
 Do you remember…

´ How many boys are there?

´ How many girls are there?
´ What is the boy in the front row wearing?
´ What is the girl in the front row wearing?
´ How many windows are there?
´ Are the windows open or closed?
´ Is the boy in the front row writing with a pen / a pencil?
´ Is the girl in the front row writing with a pen / a pencil?
Sample textbook writing activities 1
Sample textbook writing activities 2
Sample textbook writing activities 3
 Writing with other children 1

´ So far we have focused on writing individual words, phrases

& sentences. But children need to write longer pieces (e.g.
recipes, stories)
´ Children understand the structure of stories (e.g. LRRH)
´ They can co-operate to write a story they know in their L1

LRRH storyline Teacher

This is the story of LRRH How does the story begin?

Go to Granny’s, Mammy What does Mammy ask LRRH to

says do?
She walks through the What happens to LRRH?
forest & meets a wolf…
Writing with other children 2

´ Children can work in pairs to create a story as a

class
´ The teacher can provide a beginning (e.g. “It
was a dark night”) and the first pair adds a new
sentence…
´ Then the story is circulated until all the students
have written a part of it
´ Then, it can be read out loud by a St or the T
´ Such stories are often fun

Now try to write one as a group…

 Writing: Poems 1

M arvellous
O riginal
N eeded
I nteresting
C ute
A rtist
Writing: Poems 2
Writing poems 3
In this unit we have seen

´ How to help students to write in English by analysing what is

difficult about writing and how we can get there
´ We have considered various factors that need to be taken into
account such as your pupils’ age & writing skills in their L1
´ We have also considered ways in which we can connect
reading and writing
´ We have presented activities linked to writing (e.g. writing race)
´ We have established that children should write about things
they have talked about or read about
´ We have examined some sample book activities
´ We have seen how to create a story as a class
´ And we have finished with a little section on poems
´ In short, we have seen different ways to help our SS with writing!