CHAPTER 15:

CONSIDERATIONS FOR
TEACHING L2 WRITING
EFL504: Teaching Productive Skills
Celce-Murcia et al.
Content
?What is second language writing

 Rising need to write in L2 whether their purpose is to

transact business, interact on social networking siters or
pursue academic degrees.
 To teach writing effectively, we first need to understand the
nature of L2 writing ability from 2 perspectives:
 Cognitive ability (i.e. A set of skills and knowledge that
reside with an individual
 Sociocultural phenomenon i.e. as a means of
communication within a particular setting aimed at
achieving specific goals.
Cognitive Perspective of learning how to write
Sociocultural perspective
 In writing instruction, it’s importance to consider differences between speaking and
writing.
 Writing is frequently used for different purposes and requires different linguistic
structures.
Conceptual underpinning

1. Student background and needs.

2. The process approach
3. Reading and writing
connections
1. Reader response theory
2. Writing to read
3. Reading to write
4. Attribution of sources and
plagiarism
5. The role of grammar and error
correction in writing
 1. Student background and needs

 Teachers accommodate for of eye and ear learners; needs of different learner
types.
 Consider the needs of learners: academic or professional career needs, e.g.
resumes, business letters, emails and website content.
Research in L2 writing
Research cont’d
The Process Approach
Reading and writing connections

1. Reader Response theory

2. Writing to read
3. Reading to write
Reading and writing connections
1. Reader Response theory
Reading and writing connections
2. Writing to read
3. Reading to write
Attribution of sources and plagiarism
Attribution of sources and plagiarism cont’d
The role of grammar and error correction in writing
Classroom application

1. Objectives and assessment

2. Lesson planning
3. Designing writing tasks
4. Responding to student writing
Lesson planning
 Types of Activities
Pre-writing activities

1. Free writing activities

2. Generating lists of ideas or thoughts
associated with a topics
3. Making mind maps of related concepts
4. Strategies for using dictionaries and
other reference material in writing
5. Analyzing rhetorical structures of texts
6. Incorporating reading
Incorporating reading in the prewriting stage
 Writing tasks

 Suitable to students’ levels

 Respond to a variety of tasks:
 Lower proficiency levels: picture description, giving advice or
instructions, collaborative activities, e.g. dictoglosses (sts take
notes on a short text, read aloud, reconstruct text.
 Higher proficiency; authentic academic writing e.g. summaries,
proposals, reading responses, case studies and annotated
bibliographies.

 Writing needs to be structured carefully

Feedback, revision and editing
Types of teacher feedback
Types of teacher feedback
Types of feedback
Discussion of errors and grammar mini lessons
Future trends
corpus, e-rater , turnitin
Online resources

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEjpTTPVvrw

TOEFL e-rater
 Homework

 Choose one of the activities in suggested activities and conduct in your class for
next week
 Read and summarize chapter 16: Grammar in L2 Writing