Teaching Writing to

Young Learners
The Young Language Learners

• According to Cameron (2001) level of young

learners are:
• Age 3-6 years old: very young learner
• Age 7-9 years old: younger learner
• Age 10-12 years old: older learner
 Characteristics of Young
Learners
According to Brumfit (1991:7) some characteristics of
young learners are:
children are enthusiastic about learning;
children love to play and learn best when they are
enjoying themselves;
children have fewer negative attitudes to foreign
language;
children’s language learning is more closely
integrated with real communication;
Children learn through five senses.
 When should children learn
to write in the foreign language?
Children learning English may not write very much in
the first year or two (Lee, 2001:23).
They may still be consolidating their concept of print.
Copying provides opportunities to practice handwriting,
learn & consolidate their understanding of new
vocabulary, develop an awareness of and confidence in
English spelling and practice a range of simple sentence
patterns they have learned to use in speaking.
An important principle at all levels is children should
not be asked to write something that they cannot say in
English.
• Pupils in the 2nd year of schooling may move on
to practice writing sentence and very simple.
• Much of this writing provides specific language
practice as in selecting and spelling words
correctly, using the correct word order, using
grammatical structure and linking sentences with
simple conjunction.
• Children enjoy personal writing, so it is good idea
to personalize writing tasks wherever possible.
 Writing activities with younger
children
• EFL children need practice with the mechanical
basics of writing
• They can start with tracing and copying
• Activity involves word level writing
• Finger writing
• The course books contain written exercises at
sentence level (gap fill, matching words or sentence
with pictures)
• Teachers use guided writing (cards, invitation,
letters, or posters)
 Writing for Older Children
• They are ready for free writing (fill cartoon bubbles,
write instruction, shopping list, short message)
• Introduce them to word processor (computer)
• They use writing for record keeping (notes, diary, or
journal)
• Dictogloss is a creative way of using gap-filling and
dictation in the UK by Jupp & Harvey (1996) from an
original idea of Wajnryb (1991)
 Dictogloss
The steps are:
1. Prepare pupils with a range of pre listening activities to listen to a
story to introduce the topic and key words. Give the pupils a list of
the key words.
2. Read the story once again, not too fast. Pupils listen to the text a
second time and give tick to the words from the word list.
Afterwards pupils complete gap filling activities.
3. Pupils re-tell the story orally in pairs, using the completed gap-
filling text and pictures.
4. Pupils now retell the story in writing working in pairs or
individually, trying to reconstruct the text together or recreate the
main meaning with grammatical accuracy and well organized idea.
5. Display finished version and discuss the story produced.
6. A variation is that pupils try to create a different ending.
 The mechanics of writing
Writing has its mechanical components such as:
handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the construction of
well-formed sentences, paragraphs and text.

The Handwriting Challenge:

Handwriting can be difficult for some students. Areas of
difficulty can include producing the shapes of English
letters- upper case and lower case equivalent, the size as can
their correct positioning with or without ruled lines, the
writing style – from right to left can involve not only
problems of perception but also necessitates a different
angle and position for writing arm.
 Teaching handwriting
Teachers can follow a two-stage approach:

1. Recognition
Recognize specific letters within a sequence of
letters. The teacher can draw letters or words in the
air which SS have to identify.

2. Production
Teacher can give dictation of individual words and
asks SS to write down, gives an alphabetical list of
animals and SS have to write the words in one of
three columns, gives questions and SS have to write
one-word answer.
 Teaching Punctuation
• SS at elementary level can study a collection
of words and identify + rewrite which ones are
written in capital letters or not
• SS are asked to give punctuations such as full
stops and commas
• SS can be shown a sentence and ask to
identify what punctuation is used and why
 Copying
• Disguised word copying
• Copying from the board
• Making notes
• Whisper writing
 Sentence Paragraph and Text
Sentence production (elementary level): SS are given one
or two model sentences and then have to write similar
sentences based on information given or on their own
thoughts
Paragraph construction (elementary level): it employs a
“substitution drill” style of procedure to encourage SS to
write a paragraph which is almost identical to one they
have just read.
Free text construction (elementary level): it uses the
technique of parallel writing but it leaves the SS free to
decide how closely they wish to follow the original model
or based on their imagination.
 References
• Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). The
Primary English Teacher’s Guide. (New. Ed),
England: Pearson Education Limited
• Cameron , L. (2001). Teaching Languages to
Young Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge
University Press
• Reid, J. M. (1993). Teaching ESL Writing.
United States of America: Prentice Hall Regents