Teaching Second S econd Language Language Writing
This module explores the purposes of and methods for teaching second language writing. Engaging and accessible, Teaching Second Language Writing is is organized into three sections that mainly focus on activities, approaches, and real-life writing tasks and genres that are the most applicable app licable and useful for the language teachin te achingg classroom. classroom. Charlene Polio is a Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University, USA.
The Routledge E-Modules on Contemporary Contemporary Language La nguage Teaching Series Editors: Bill VanPatten, Michigan State University, USA, and Gregory D. Keating, San Diego State University University,, USA
The Routledge E-Modules on Contemporary Language Teaching series is an exciting and innovative approach to topics for the novice or in-training teacher of languages. Written in an easily accessible style and delivered in e-format only, specialists and experts provide the latest thinking on a variety of issues that form the foundation of language-teacher knowledge and practice: the nature of language and communication, second language acquisition, interactive tasks, assessment, focus on form, vocabulary development, technology in language teaching, among many others. Each module serves as a self-contained unit to be used on its own or as part of an introductory course on language teaching. Instructors may “mix and match” modules to create their own readings for a course on language teaching. The modules may serve as primary reading or as supplemental reading, with each module offering points o reflection, discussion questions, self-quizzes, and a reading list for those who wish to delve further further into the topic. Language Bill VanPatten Communication and Skill Bill VanPatten Second Language Acquisition The Basics Gregory Gregory D. Keating Keatin g Vocabulary Vocabulary in Language Teaching Joe Barcroft Interactive Interactiv e Tasks Tasks Michael J. Leeser and Justin P. White Focusing on Form Form in Language L anguage Instruction Wynne Wong and Daphnée Simard
Technology echnology in i n Language Learning An Overview Bryan Smith Teaching Second S econd Language Writing Charlene Charlene Polio
Teaching Second Second Language Language Writing Writing Charlene Polio
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Teaching Second S econd Language Language Writing Charlene Polio Michigan Michigan State University
Overview In this module you will explore the following topics: the reasons for teaching writing the role of writing in second language acquisition acquisition writing activities and tasks that will help students learn language collaborative writing writing goals and activities related to real-life writing tasks scaffolding the writing process options for giving feedback assessing writing
What Is Writing and What Is Its Purpose in the Language Classroom? Often when we think about writing, we think of writing an essay, but writing can also be thought of in a much broader sense. Literacy researchers, who also often study first language writers, have considered writing to include daily tasks such as keeping lists and filling out forms as well as blog b log writing and even eve n tweeting. In this sense, writing writing is a modality m odality that helps people achieve real-life goals. In contrast, in language classes, writing can help students achieve language learning goals. In sum, writing can be something through which one communicates information to a wide audience, a tool through which one accomplishes real-
life tasks, or a modality in which teachers construct pedagogical activities to help students learn language. One approach to thinking about teaching writing is to consider three different reasons that students in language classes might write. First, writing can be used to help students learn language. For example, students studying Spanish in a beginning high school class may not have specific writing goals. Instead, they may simply want to learn to speak, or, more likely, they may not know why they are studying the language, or they may be doing so simply to fulfill a requirement. Nevertheless, teachers can (and should) construct writing activities that will help students learn language. This is often called a writing-to-learn-language approach and is discuss discussed ed in more mo re detail in the next section. An example of a writing-to-learn-language writing-to-learn-language activity might be to give students a set of pictures with a set of vocabulary words and ask them to write a story describing the pictures with the words provided. The primary goal o this activity is for students to be able to use the new vocabulary as opposed to being able to write a story from pictures, which which likely has no real-life equivalent. e quivalent. In contrast, students might have writing goals outside of the classroom. These might include tasks as diverse as writing an email to a hotel to inquire about amenities or writing a research paper for publication. In this case, instruction should focus on writing a specific genre for a specific audience. This is often called a learning-to-write approach. Such an approach, which is detailed later, often involves having students look at real-life examples, after which the teacher helps the students students through the process proce ss of producing the target targe t text. Of course, students students can and should learn language in this approach. A learning-to-write approach includes language goals, but they are directly related to the target genre. For example, if students are learning how to write a polite email in English, they would need to understand how to use modals in this context. In contrast, in a writing-to-learn-language approach, the language objectives, not the task, are the starting point. A third approach that can be discussed in the context of language teaching is a writing-tolearn-content approach. It is easiest to think about this approach outside of a language class. For example, a teacher may have students write about how they solved a math problem to help them learn math. In this case, writing forces the students to think about and reflect on the problem-solving process. Similarly, a professor in a language teaching methods class might have students observe a class and write about the class while focusing on specific topics. Most people will never have to write about solving a math problem or about what they observed in a language class, but in both cases, the act of writing is a process for reflection and a way for students to organize their thoughts on the content. Although this last approach is not discussed in detail here, it can be useful to consider in certain contexts related to language learning. In an ESL context, a child might understand and complete a mathematical operation but not be able to talk about math in English. Having the student write about the problem will not necessarily help the student learn math and, in fact,
might slow him or her down, but it might provide the student with the vocabulary and grammar needed to be able to talk about math and understand explanations about math in English. Another context in which writing-to-learn-content should be considered is when teaching about history, literature, or culture in the target language. A teacher might, for example, have students write a journal entry about their reactions to a short story or a paper about an author’s background. The instructor’s goal may be for the students to understand the literature by writing about it. However, the act of writing, as with the ESL math student, requires productive use of grammar and vocabulary and should facilitate language learning. This approach, too, is not mutually exclusive with the others in terms of activities but rather represents a different instructional starting point related to the instructor’s goals. This module is organized into three sections. In the first, I expand on the writing-to-learnlanguage approach and provide examples of activities. In the second part, I focus on real-life writing tasks and genres and activities that will scaffold students through the assignments. I end with a short discussion of the major issues related to assessing writing, but it is recommended that readers see the module on language assessment in this series for more details on the major issues related to assessment.
Reflection What kinds of writing did you have to do when you were beginning to study another language? What do you think think the purpose of the writing writing was?
How Can Writing Help Students Learn a Second Language? What Are Writing-To-Learn-Lan riting-To-Learn-Language guage Activities A ctivities? ? As explained earlier, activities done when preparing or helping students write real-life genres can and should facilitate language learning. Thus, writing-to-learn-language and learning-towrite activities are not mutually exclusive, and many of the activities can be used for either purpose. Although this module conceptualizes writing very broadly, it does not include writing at only the word or sentence level. For example, a cloze passage (i.e., a text with blanks for certain words), a sentence dictation, or a grammar transformation activity (e.g., changing present tense sentences into past tense) would not be considered as writing here. Such activities are not necessarily bad, but the latter two, specifically, do not teach students
anything about discourse-level issues, such as coherence and cohesion. Below are two examples example s of how these activities can be transformed transformed from activities activities mostly devoid of meaning into more meaningful writing activities that require writing connected discourse.
Original Activity: Dictation The students listen to a teacher read the following sentences one at a time as the students write them. A thief was chased by a policeman. Some money was stolen from the bank. The police were called by the bank manager. manager.
Improved Activity: Self-dictation The teacher displays the the following passage on the screen (or hands hands the students a paper copy). After a certain amount of time, the teacher hides the passage (or has the students turn their papers over) ove r) and has the students reproduce reproduce the passage as best be st they can. One day, something quite unexpected happened in a Belgian town: people saw a million Euros blowing around their town. It turned out that some robbers were being chased by the police and the safe that they had stolen flew open. People ran around the town trying to collect the money. The mayor, Patrick Arnou, said, “It was a rainstorm of money. People talk about nothing else any more in this town.” Some honest people did return the money, but more than half of it was not returned despite the mayor’s request that people not keep the money. He said that if people returned the money to a mailbox in the town, they would not be punished. However, after this request, the mailbox was stolen.
Adapted from: White, S. (2013, May 3.). It’s raining cash! One MILLION Euros blows out of safe and into streets. RDSr>
Original Activity: Sentence Rewriting Rewrite the following sentences in the the past tense. The food is cold. The table is dirty. The waiter apologizes. I receive a free dessert.
Improved Activity: Role-Play Rewrite Have the students do a role play in which they are given role cards to act out a problem-
solution, such as this restaurant scenario. Customer: Waiter:
You think think one of o f the forks is a little dirty so would like like the waiter to take tak e it back to get ge t a new one. Also ask why the order o rder,, for starters, is is so slow to arrive. Apologize for the dirty dirty fork and and explain that there there is a new person working working in the the kitchen and the orders are a little slow this evening. evening.
Following the role play, have students write the following: Write an email to a friend about the restaurant experience in the role play. End by saying that even though the waiter was very nice, you are not sure that you would go back.
In the dictation example, students will hear each sentence and write. If the sentences are read slowly and are not too long, some students might be able to write what they hear without really understanding the grammar being targeted (in this case, the passive). If the dictation is done correctly and the sentences are long enough to tax the students’ memory, the students will have to process and reproduce the sentences and use the passive, which may be somewhat beneficial, but there is no context to help the students understand when the the passive is used. Although learners generally need to understand the meaning of a long sentence to reproduce it, the isolated sentences make the activity one where the students are focused focused more mo re on form than on meaning. By using connected discourse, students can understand how the passive is used (e.g., to achieve coherence with the previous sentence, to emphasize the object that was acted on), which is not possible with single sentences. Another possible benefit of using using connected discourse discourse is that the students students will be exposed to natural combinations of words such as col-locations (e.g., quite unexpected ) or chunks o language (e.g., blowing around ). If the passage has not been altered from its source, it can be around ). considered authentic and will provide examples of language as it is used in real life. That said, teacher-made texts or altered texts can still be useful, particularly if a teacher wants to target specific grammar or vocabulary. Note, however, that the students’ input is being limited, so it is important to sometimes use authentic texts, even with beginners, so they eventually feel more comfortable with authentic language. language. The self-dictation passage above could be used for a dictation or dictocomp (discussed later in this module), but having the students read, repeat to themselves, and then write, has some advantages. As students read, they need to make sense of the passage. Silent reading allows students to reread the parts that they have difficulty understanding. Trying to remember the passage makes them repeat chunks of language over in their heads. In addition, seeing an unknown unknown word, as opposed oppo sed to hearing an unknown word, likely makes it easier for the learner to isolate and remember the problem point. The sample passage for the self-dictation is not completely authentic: a few of the sentences were altered to include more examples of the passive, but hopefully, they sound natural. The
passage was altered to illustrate how a teacher might include a grammar focus here. When authentic passages are used, activities like the self-dictation can be challenging and push students to produce some complex language. However, if it is too challenging, students won’t be able to reproduce the passage exactly, and thus, these activities should not be used as tests or be graded. Instead, an appropriate follow-up activity is essential. For example, teachers can have students compare what they wrote to the original o riginal passage passage and decide if what they wrote was ungrammatical or simply different. The teacher can also guide the students in deciding why certain constructions in the original might sound better. This type of activity can also be used when students have specific real-life writing goals by choosing texts that are similar to what students will have to write. The advantage of this and other text-based activities is that teachers are free to choose any text tex t that they want for any population pop ulation.. The role-play example exam ple shows how students can use use the present tense in an oral activity and then rework the same content into the past tense. Both the role play and follow-up email activity are contextualized and give the students an opportunity to reuse vocabulary.
What Is the Rationale Behind B ehind Writing-To-Lear Writing-To-Learn-Lan n-Language guage Appr A pproaches? oaches? I have touched upon how writing might facilitate language learning but have not detailed all of the benefits that writing can have. To better understand the benefits, consider an example of a freewriting freewriting activity activit y below. Freewriting can take different forms, but usually, the goal is to have the students get their ideas down on paper without worrying too much about using perfect language or organizational structure. The example below is from a lesson that focuses on a unit in the students’ textbook, but students can write on any topic appropriate to their level or the curriculum.
Sample Sample Freewriting Activity Context: Spanish students will begin a unit in their books about Frida Kahlo (a famous Mexican painter). Assignment: Look at the timeline of Frida Kahlo’s life along with the events. Write for ten minutes, as quickly as you can, about Frida Kahlo. You may write what you already know or you may use the timeline and information to make guesses about which events occurred at which times. It does not matter if the content you write is correct or not. Try to write without stopping and don’t worry about perfect grammar or vocabulary. (Note: The information should be in Spanish, not in English as below.)
Variations: Provide images, instead instead of a timeline, related to K ahlo’s life.
The purpose of the freewriting is not to have students write a polished essay on the life o Frida Kahlo, which may eventually be an assignment in some classes. Rather, the goal of the freewriting is to help students learn language related to reading and talking about Kahlo. By providing the students with the vocabulary and phrases, the teacher is scaffolding the task; students will hopefully use vocabulary as they write. If images are provided instead of text and the students students do not have all the vocabulary they need, they can write a few fe w isolated words in their first language. Freewriting activities are often used with the assumption that the students will have a discussion about the topic or a more formal writing assignment, and there are several benefits to having students write before they talk or o r write. First, and likely most important, im portant, all students students are on task when they are all writing. If the activity described earlier is done orally as a class, only a few students will be able to speak and produce language. Most second language acquisition researchers agree that output (i.e., oral or written production) is essential to language learning. Without output, learners can often bypass grammatical structures that they do not have control over. When they produce language, they have to pay attention to the structure of the language. What’s more, writing affords more opportunities for attention to form than do speaking activities because of the nature of the modality. Writing is slower than speaking and allows learners to review what they have produced, possibly revising their language. In addition, for many learners, structures and vocabulary appear first in written production and later in speaking. Writing is a chance for those students to use more advanced language than they might be capable of using in speaking. Another benefit to having students write before they speak is that writing is a form o planning. Much research has shown that having students plan before they speak results in their use of more complex grammatical structures (but not necessarily more accurate morphology and syntax). Thus, writing may be a way to push students’ oral language production. From an affective perspective, students are likely to feel more confident when called on if they have had a chance to write first. Note that if writing is used as a pre-speaking activity, students
should not simply read what they have written and should be asked to turn over their papers during the oral activity. Sometimes when students write before a speaking activity, they may not have the vocabulary they need. Consider a communicative find-the-differences activity in which two students have slightly different pictures and need to talk with each other to find the differences. The purpose of the activity is get students to interact in the target language using vocabulary from the pictures and grammar with which they need to make themselves comprehensible to their partners. Teachers can have students write a description of their picture before completing the task. If students are struggling to find a word or structure, they are noticing what has been called a gap in their language. Thus, when the instructor teaches the necessary vocabulary to complete the task, the students are primed to learn because they realize they need the new language. If students write as a post- (instead of pre-) speaking or reading activity, the writing task can give them an opportuni opp ortunity ty to reflect ref lect on what they learned. For example, example , in the the Frida F rida Kahlo lesson, lesson, students can can write about what w hat the information presented about her life for ten minutes at the end of class. Such an activity will also help the students recycle new language. Indeed, research has shown that writing tasks in which students have to use new vocabulary result in better retention of that vocabulary. In the restaurant role-play activity, students have to produce what might be a new grammatical g rammatical structure, structure, the past tense. In this case, vocabulary vocabulary is being recycled while the students have an opportunit op portunity y to focus on grammar when completing the writing activity. From an assessment perspective, having students write at the end of class allows the teacher to check the comprehension com prehension of all students, students, not just just those who spoke spo ke during during class.
Reflection You have just read about two options: freewriting prior to engaging in a topic and freewriting after engaging in a topic. Imagine using freewriting both as a pre- and postdiscussion task. What changes in how or what students write do you think you’d see between the two versions?
What Is Collaborative Writing and How Can It Help Facilitate Language Learning? One type of collaborative writing involves instructing students to get together and write an essay or produce a web site. These activities may result in better-written texts because of the
greater overall expertise among the group. One problem, however, is that one student may do the bulk of the writing, with other students producing little language. One option is to have different students write different parts of a paper and then exchange their parts for feedback from their peers. This can be a beneficial activity, but most teachers, as discussed later, conduct peer review to focus on higher-level issues such as content and organization and less so on language issues. In keeping with the focus of this section, the discussion here is about collaborative writing-to-learn activities that can help students students focus on language. Some of the early research on collaborative writing was conducted using dictocomps (also called dictoglosses). A dictocomp is similar to the self-dictation above except that the teacher reads the passage aloud, usually three times, at a pace faster than a regular dictation. The purpose is for students to listen for the meaning first and then try to reconstruct the passage using some of their own words but also, hopefully, some of the vocabulary or grammar from the passage that is a bit beyond their level, hence pushing their output. Research has shown that when students students work together to reconstruct the passages, they focus on language issues as they try to reproduce the text. These instances of focusing on language are called languagerelated episodes and are associated with learning (although a clear cause-effect relationship has not been established). established). It is possible during a dictocomp activity that the more proficient student in a pair will do more of the passage reconstr re construction uction,, but there are ways to maximize collaboration. collaboration. One way to do this is to provide students in each pair with different information, such as different vocabulary or phrases from the passage. It is likely that the students will understand different parts of the passage and have to collaborate to reconstruct it. Another option in some language classes is to pair heritage and nonheritage students because, generally, the heritage students will have stronger listening skills but the nonheritage students will have stronger metalinguistic and spelling skills. The important point is to try to set up the activity and the groups so that students will have to share information. Finally, another type of collaboration involves having students interpret feedback together. There are different ways to give written feedback, and these are addressed in the next section, but assume, for example, that a teacher underlines errors or uses an error code so that when students revise, they have to pay attention to the feedback more closely than if the teacher had just written the correction. The hope is that when students rewrite, they can help each other with the feedback because they bring different knowledge to the task. Sometimes students will even scaffold for each other. In the example here taken from a study by Brooks and Swain (2009), students participated in a writing and revision task in pairs. The example shows how the students worked together to reach a conclusion about a grammatically correct superlative form. A: Two days ago the most rich. rich.
E: A: E: A: E: A: E: A:
I think think richest richest,, rich rich is— is— Ah yes, the richest richest.. Richest? Richest? Richest? Richest? Most rich rich guy? Ugh! Ugh! I don’t don’t remember. remember. Oh, so terribl terriblee our grammar. grammar. I think think rich richest est is is OK. The. The, Th e, the, the, because because in the world. world. Thee richest Th richest guy. guy. (p. 69)
To sum up, there is a wide variety of writing activities that can be used in language classes to help students learn language. There is not space to cover all types of activities, but teachers can be creative in developing activities that will encourage students to write even when the focus is on grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, or reading. As a final example, consider how writing can require students to read more closely. Specifically, students can be provided with part of a reading and then be asked to write a possible missing sentence or paragraph. Because the students have to write, they will have to read the surrounding text closely to ensure that they understand. They will have to possibly use vocabulary from the passage.
Quiz Take the following short quiz to see what you have learned so far. Answers are given at the end, so don’t don’t peek. pee k. 1. Why is the use of a paragraph better than the use of single sentences in a dictation activity? a. The teacher teache r can include specific grammar gramma r points. b. The students will likely focus more on meaning. c. The paragraph parag raph activity can include more complex com plex vocabulary vocab ulary.. 2. Which of the following activities is likely to help students learn collocations? a. Give the students students words and and have them write a story. story. b. Have the students students do do a freewriting. c. Have the students students do do a dictocomp.
3. What would be a good follow-up follow-up to a freewriting freewriting activity? a. A discussion discussion on the topic the students have written writte n about. b. Have students students exchange exchange papers pape rs to correct correct each other’s other’s grammar. grammar. c. Ask the students to stand up and read their papers out loud. 4. Which Which of the the following is NOT a language-re language-related lated episode? a. A student asks another if a word is spelled spelle d correctly. b. A student calls over the teacher during pairwork to resolve a disagreement about ab out vocabulary. vocabulary. c. A student asks another student if he or she needs to include more specific details. 5. If a French teacher asks his or her students to write about abo ut a picture of a Parisian Parisian street using a specific set of adjectives, what type of activity is this? a. A writing-to-learn-lan writing-to-learn-language guage activity. activity. b. A learning-tolearning-to-write write activity. activity. c. Both a and b. 6. Which of the following is NOT true of collaborative writing activities? a. Student-pairing Student-pairing variations may affect the outcome outcome of o f the activity activity.. b. Providing students in each pair with the same information is important. c. Collaboration can help students understand the teacher’s feedback better. Answers: 1. b; 2. c; 3. a; 4. c; 5. a; 6. b
How Can Students Learn to Write Real-Life Genres? This section focuses on writing real-life genres. Although genre has been defin de fined ed differently in the literature, it usually refers to a specific type of writing done for a specific purpose. Yet even within a genre there will be variations. Take, for example, a movie review. Instructors will often have their students watch a movie and write a review, which is an excellent way to
integrate listening and writing while also using authentic materials and possibly teaching cultural information. However, movie reviews can take very different forms. The site metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/movie (http://www.metacritic.com/movie ) includes reader-written reviews that anyone can post as well as reviews from experienced critics who publish in major newspapers and magazines. It is easy to see that these reviews differ greatly on a range of features, so they serve to illustrate the concept of genre (the movie review) and subgenres (an online review posted by a movie-goer vs. a review from a newspaper). Some textbooks also identify genre as a type of essay such as a compare-contrast or causeeffect essay. These types of classifications may have a limited purpose, but they are less likely to be written outside of classroom or assessment contexts. Sometimes these types o pedagogical genres are called five-paragraph essays ( introduction oduction,, three body paragraphs, parag raphs, and essays (intr conclusion). They are taught because they are easily learned by students and because students are often assessed on this type of writing such as in the TOEFL independent writing task. In a situation where students will be assessed on the five-paragraph essay, it is fairly important to teach this type of essay in fairness to the students. However, one problem with the fiveparagraph essay is that the organization does not extend to other genres. This point is made clear in a parody in which a New York Times article and a wedding announcement (http:/ http://www. /www.collegehumor. collegehumor.com/post/6941975/if-everyone-still-wrote-like-they-did-in-coll com/post/6941975/if-everyone-still-wrote-like-they-did-in-college ege)) are written like a class essay, with the writer starting out general and then focusing in on the topic, much like students are taught to do in a five-paragraph essay. Here, I argue further for a focus on genres, explain how to help students through the writing process, and end with options for giving feedback. I am not arguing that all writing has to be genre-based, because, as discussed earlier, writing-to-learn-language activities are not genre-based. Instead, I am arguing for a combination of activities in all contexts and at all proficiency proficiency levels.
Reflection Consider the definition of genre given earlier. Look over a newspaper and see how many genres you can identify. How many of these genres have you had to produce in your life?
Why Start Start With Genres Genres and Which Should Be Used? In some situations, such as studying a foreign language in the US, students may not have
specific language needs. Nevertheless, an argument can still be made for genres as a starting point even though such an argument is easier to make m ake if students students have real-life writing goals. go als. Let’s consider a situation in which students will need to write in the second language. I students students in an ESL setting are applyin ap plyingg to US universities, they they will need, among am ong other things, things, to write a statement of purpose, an email to their assigned advisor, or possibly an email o introduction introduction to their new new roommate. roo mmate. These three genres are quite different but represent three assignments that could be assigned in this context. The arguments for using genres in this context are varied. First, focusing on a specific genre is more efficient for learning to perform writing tasks required outside of academic papers. I students start with a five-paragraph essay, they will likely learn language, but it may not be the language they need to complete a real-life task. A statement of purpose, for example, tends to be organized differently than a five-paragraph essay. In fact, a statement of purpose could be judged poorly if it resembles a five-paragraph essay, so it is inefficient to teach students a form that they may need to unlearn. Second, if given appropriate examples of the genre, students will be exposed to vocabulary and structures that are actually used and not only provided in textbooks. For example, a letter in a textbook is likely to end with sincerely , but actual emails often have different closing phrases depending on the context. This example is quite salient, but what is less obvious is that different overall vocabulary and collocations are used in different genres. Similarly, because different genres fulfill different purposes, they necessitate necessitate different grammatical g rammatical structures structures to fulfill fulfill those purposes. An academic paper might contain more hedging such as achieved by modals or adverbs, whereas a set of instructions might contain more imperatives. It is more efficient for students to focus on the language that is common in the genre they will need to write. In contexts where the students do not have well-defined needs, genres can serve as a vehicle for teaching pragmatics (or appropriate use of language and communication for particular kinds of writing tasks). As in the example of the email, even if students do not need to write emails e mails to a professor or a friend, friend, they will become aware of different terms of address and politeness formulae. Assignments can be altered to have students write for a variety o audiences. In the earlier role-play example, I argued that having students write an email to a friend after their role play allows them to recycle vocabulary while using a new grammatical structure. structure. This This assignment assignment can be expanded by having them write an email of complaint com plaint to the manager or a posting to a web site such as TripAdvisor. The goal is for students to learn how to use language appropriate to a range of o f audiences. audiences. Another argument for using genres is that they are likely to increase student motivation. I students have specific writing needs, they will obviously want to learn how to write those genres. If they don’t, and the genres can be framed as representations of the target culture, they will likely be more interesting to the students. When choosing genres to focus on, teachers should choose genres students will need to write outside of the classroom. For
students without specific needs, teachers can try to predict what their students will need or simply try to expose them to a wide range of genres. Below are four sample assignments that reflect different genres and different audiences, yet all represent writing that is done in real life.
Sample Assignments 1. Have the students read some some restauran re staurantt reviews in the target language written by professional writers and then compare them to online reviews written by customers. Then give the students a new professional review. Using the information from the review, have the students write an example of an online online review. rev iew. 2. Give the students the following prompt: Imagine that your family is hosting an exchange student from the target culture. Write a letter to that student describing your family members membe rs and their their routines so so that he or she knows k nows what to expect expe ct upon arrival. 3. Have the students listen to a lecture and take notes, note s, then answer a question that will summarize the lecture. 4. Give the students the following following prompt: prom pt: You are an undergraduate undergraduate taking secondyear calculus. You are a student in a class of 25 taught by Professor David Miller. It is the fifth week of the semester, sem ester, and and there is a quiz scheduled scheduled for your class at 2 p.m. It is 9 a.m. and you are really sick with the flu. You were up all night with a high fever and you still don’t feel better, so you will have to miss class and the quiz. There is nothing on the syllabus about a make-up policy for quizzes, only exams. Write an email to your professor asking about the possibil p ossibility ity of making up the quiz. In example 1, the students are provided with authentic input representing something they might read in a target language newspaper. Although students will likely never write a newspaper-quality review, reading such reviews will provide information about the target culture and likely include vocabulary about food as well as colloquial language that is unknown. Students can also analyze reviews of the same restaurant that readers contribute to online sites. These reviews can be compared for structure and language. Students can then be given another published review and create their own online reviews for fun. If they have actually actually eaten at the restaurant, they can post the reviews re views online. The second assignment assignment takes take s a common comm on topic (i.e., write about ab out your family) and transforms transforms it into a real-life genre with an imagined audience. One of the benefits be nefits of focusing focusing on genres is exactly this: it forces students to think about who they are writing for as opposed to writing for a grade. One would hope that the students will view writing as a way to create meanin me aningg in
a specific context and then use use language appropriate to that context. The third assignment might be used in an academic writing class. Often such classes teach students how to write papers of some type, but it’s important to remember that the students may also be required to answer exam questions. Furthermore, they will have to integrate what they have heard and read while responding to those questions. If students are asked to listen to a lecture and then summarize it, the instructions (and genre) are not necessarily clear. In other words, the so-called summary genre is difficult to define. Such listen-and-summarize activities often fail to specify how much information should be included and how long the summary should be and, in fact, are not done in non-language classrooms. A more realistic assignment is to actually write a question that the students have to answer for which there are specific length guidelines. Many academic genres include having students read outside sources and then citing those sources in their writing. Of course, this is an important and complex skill that should be taught if students need to do this. I do not have space to include more information on having students write from sources, so I have included some suggested reading in the Suggestions for furthe section at the end of this module. reading section
Reflection Given what you know about the role of input in language development, what do you think might be the role for reading different genres in learning how to write in different genres?
How Can Teachers Scaffold the Writing Process? In the previous discussion, I focused on possible assignments and genres but have not yet discussed how to help students write the various genres. First, there are many types o prewriting activities that can be done, and the best to use depends on the nature of the assignment. In assignment example 1 in which the students have to write online reviews, it makes sense to start with models of other reviews rev iews and analyze analyze them for content, organization, organization, and language before having students write their own. For the family assignment, it may be difficult to find real-life examples to show the students first, but teachers can lead an in-class brainstorming activity in which students get together and list information that they might want to include in such a letter. Class members can then regroup and compare their lists before students write their own individual letters. At this point, teachers can fill in any gaps
related to vocabulary that the students need to accomplish the task. Teachers Teachers may also address audience issues such as what information may or may not be appropriate to include. Another approach to helping students write a specific genre is a detailed analysis of several models, also called a move analysis. This term was used by John Swales and his colleagues, who have done many analyses of different types of academic writing such as journal abstracts and literature reviews, among others. They have identified what types of information (e.g., stating the research questions, finding a gap in the previous literature) are included in a genre and in what order as well as typical language used in the various moves. This type of analysis can be used if models of a genre are available, which is usually the case in many types o academic writing. For example assignment 4 above (email to calculus professor), a genre for which there are no accessible models, other options exist. A teacher can use example assignment 4 as a writing prompt to begin a discussion of appropriate moves for the email in the given context. After students make an initial attempt at the email, the class can compare the moves used by the different students. Moves might include, among others, salutation, apology, request, statement of reason for request, background information, and closing. The class can also also compare the amount of detail in each of the moves mov es as well as the language used. For example, some students may include an introduction, but this is likely unnecessary in a class of 25 students during the fifth week of the semester. Even if it were necessary, some students begin with “My name is …” when something like “I am in your calculus class” is more appropriate. Other issues that may come up include whether or not the student should state the nature of an illness (e.g., a fever vs. an intestinal problem). Also important to address are the various ways to open and close an email to a professor. At this point, the students can revise their original emails based on the class discussion. Another approach to this type o genre, for which there may not be easily accessible models, is to give native speakers the prompt and compare those to the students’ writing. The writing prompt can also be altered using different types of personal relationships in the email (e.g., undergraduate-professor, graduate student-professor, undergraduate-teaching assistant) to emphasize audience considerations. In summary, there are a variety of activities that teachers can construct to help students before they write. They can focus on vocabulary, organizational structure, content generation, and grammar. Some of these matters, however, can be focused on when students revise their writing, either instead of as a prewriting activity or in addition to a prewriting activity.
How Can Teachers Help Students Revise? There are different activities that can be used to help students revise their writing, the most obvious being teacher feedback. Note that here I am talking about first revising for more
global issues related to content and organization. Teacher-provided feedback can be given by writing comments on the students’ paper, meeting with the students, orally recording comments, or using a grading rubric (see discussion later in the module) to detail comments about the different traits the students need to focus on in their revisions. This can be a timeconsuming consuming process in large classes, and indeed, indeed, there are other methods that better be tter involve the students in the revision process. Many teachers use peer review as a way to help students revise. When peer review is used, it’s important to give clear and detailed assignment-specific guidelines. Sometimes students exchange papers without clear directions and may not know what to say or may write vague comments. In the email example, the guidelines could include questions like: Is the email addressed correctly? Is any information missing that needs to be added? Better yet, yes/no questions can be avoided and instead students can be asked to, for example assignment 2 (letter to exchange student), for example, list the topics covered in the letter, decide whether or not they are appropriate, and add at least one additional topic that could be included. For some assignments, peer reviewers can fill out a graphic organizer or try to write an outline o the writing. This will help them understand the organization of the paper or alert them to problems with it. Another option is to have students comment on each other’s papers using a grading rubric (but without actually assigning a grade). To make peer review more effective, the reviews should be collected for the teacher to peruse, and the receivers of the feedback should have to comment on whether or not they incorporated their peers’ feedback. This will make the students accountable accountable and force them to pay attention to the feedback. Most teachers do not have students give each other language feedback for a few reasons. First, students should focus first on revising for content and organization. If given language feedback during an initial peer review session, students will likely focus only on editing for grammar. Second, in some contexts, students are often not good at giving language feedback, and this can result in confusion. In an ESL context, where students are often heterogeneous in their language knowledge, less proficient students sometimes try to correct sentences that are already correct because the feedback giver is not able to use a structure. If students give each other language feedback, it’s best for them to focus on a specific structure, with instructions such as: Circle the subjects of each sentence and then note whether or not the subject-verb agreement is correct. Some questions remain about the effectiveness of peer feedback. In fact, many teachers believe that the benefits of peer feedback are the result of training students to give feedback which they then apply to their own papers. This is different from applying a peer’s feedback during revision. One study has indeed shown that giving feedback is more beneficial than receiving it. Thus, another approach is to have students review their own papers using the same peer review guidelines, outlining, or commenting on grading rubrics. Similarly, they can be given guidelin g uidelines es for focusing focusing on specific grammar issues. issues.
What About Language Feedback? The most common questions among language teachers are related to providing language feedback more efficiently and the effectiveness of language feedback in writing activities. Speaking to the second issue, we cannot say unequivocally that written corrective feedback does or does doe s not work. In fact, this has been the most m ost widely debated issue issue in second language writing for the last 20 years. There are, however, certain things that we know and don’t know as well as ways to save time in the feedback process. First, most students want language feedback. Second, S econd, students students should should be encouraged to revise for content and organization organization before revising for language. This is because if teachers provide language feedback, students will likely not revise for content and organization because the feedback may not pertain to the new content. Furthermore, students may notice and be able to correct some of their own language errors when making global revisions. Finally, everyone agrees that students need to do something with the feedback for it to be effective. Without a final step, some students may not look at the feedback, and even those who do may not process it effectively. effectively. Answering the question “does written corrective feedback work?” is difficult because the question is too vague. Defining written corrective feedback is is possible, but explaining what is meant by work is is not straightforward, so let us begin with a discussion of the variety of ways to give language feedback on students’ papers. The most common options include correcting errors, underlining them, or assigning them some type of code (such as s-v for subject-verb ). Coding is likely the most common way to give feedback because simply agreement ). correcting correcting an error e rror does not encourage students to think about the problem, while underlini underlining ng an error does not provide any metalinguistic information to help students determine the problem. Other less common methods me thods includ includee puttin p uttingg a check in the margin on any lines with errors, highlighting general error types in different colors (e.g., syntactic, morphological, and lexical), and rewriting ungrammatical sentences. The second point is whether or not written corrective feedback of any type is effective, and there are a few ways to approach this issue. Certainly, corrective feedback of any kind will result in a better revision, but given the time-consuming nature of giving feedback, most teachers want some reassurance that the feedback will help students in their subsequent writing and not on only one draft. The other issue to consider is that the feedback may result in fewer errors but simpler, less sophisticated writing because students are too focused on avoiding errors. Some studies that have shown improvement on new pieces of writing have targeted only a few errors, e rrors, often called called focused correction. Although these studies are interesting, they likely do not reflect ref lect how most teachers correct errors, and they ignore the impact on other aspects o the students’ students’ language. Of the studies that examined more mo re unfocused feedback, two provided in the suggested reading list at the end of this module have demonstrated the effectiveness o
feedback in error reduction without harmful effects to other aspects of writing. One of these two studies (by Hartshorn et al.) is unique because students wrote every day and had to rewrite until there were no errors. It raises the important question of how intensive feedback has to be for it to work. The likely reason that so many teachers and researchers are concerned about the effectiveness of corrective feedback is because it is extremely time consuming. There are several reasons for this. First, it is difficult for a teacher to focus on meaning (i.e., the content of the writing) and grammar at the same time. This is another reason to give students feedback on context and organization first; teachers can focus on language problems only on revised versions. In addition, addition, although although certain problems such as subject-verb subject-verb agreement agreem ent errors are straightforward and easy to correct or code, giving feedback becomes time-consuming when students’ meaning is not clear or when there are multiple ways to fix a problem. Many teachers also struggle with correcting something that is not necessarily wrong but simply awkward. Below are four sentences taken from ESL ES L students’ writing. writing. 1. I think this history was was about lose weight. weight. 2. The man was angry because he was bad lucky . 3. Our country is is very poor. So, my father couldn’t study no more but, b ut, he begins study of engineering. For example, He make a machine of a kind of clothes make machine. respe ct my father. He has a patient. I saw my father during I grew up . I respect 4. There was a dog sitting sitting down and looking at him him open his eyes widely not even try to close his eyes one time . For sentence 1, the target sentence was likely I think this story is about losing weight , and the lexical and morphological errors can easily be fixed or coded. Sentence 2 is comprehensible but can be corrected by changing the verb to had and and the adjective to a noun, resulting in he had bad luck . Alternatively, bad lucky can be changed to unlucky . The problem is that the source of the error is unknown: Is the student having trouble with the correct verb or the correct adjective? Sentence 3, on the other hand, is even more problematic because the meaning is not clear. The likely meaning is I watched my father while I was growing up , but several changes need to be made to make the sentence grammatically correct. Sentence 4 is particularly challenging because it is quite ungrammatical but yet still comprehensible. This sentence is based on a picture story in which a dog is staring at a man. A teacher could cross out the whole sentence and write the dog was staring at him , but such a correction seems to change the students’ original sentence too drastically. There are no easy ways to deal with these more challenging language problems, but one option is to underline the sentences, have the students try to rewrite them, and then go over some of the sentences as an entire class. Simply trying to correct the sentences will consume much of a teacher’s time and may not
even give g ive the students students the information they need to understand their their language problems. prob lems. As mentioned earlier, most teachers agree that students have to do something with language feedback. Having students rewrite is the most obvious step. Another option is to have students write about the feedback. Teachers can number some of the corrections and then ask the students to answer the questions What was your error and and why was it incorrect This is very time consuming for students and thus is likely something that would be done only occasionally. An alternative is to have students fill out error logs such as the one below. For each writing assignment, they can count the number of error types and keep a tally. The rationale is that the students can monitor their progress and may be more motivated to edit their writing. The last category, incomprehensible sentences , requires the students to actually write the sentences instead of just counting the errors (see Figure 1.1). 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Sample Sample Error Log.
One point made throughout this module is that because writing is helpful for a variety o reasons, it is good to have students write often. Sometimes teachers don’t have students write because they do not have time to give feedback on every draft or on every piece of writing. Nevertheless, there are alternatives to giving feedback that are likely helpful. First, teachers can encourage self-correction. Have students bring their papers to class and give them some type of check list that includes points such as Check the subject-verb agreement in each
sentence . The benefit of doing this activity in class is that teachers can also include instructions such as Circle any words that you are not sure are used correctly and then walk around and help students once they have circled the words. Second, teachers can provide feedback to the entire class. One way to do this is to collect students’ writing and then choose sentences that include the most common errors. These can be corrected in class, and then the students can rewrite their own essays. This approach works particularly well in homogeneous classes where the students are writing on similar topics. The hope is that students can apply the corrections to their own writing. Group correction may be effective for sentences that include awkward language. Because such errors are not easy to correct, they can be discussed as a class and more time can be devoted to them. This This section began with w ith focusing focusing on learning to write specific genres (as opposed opp osed to writingwritingto-learn-language) where the genre is the starting point. But as we have explored, it is still essential to include a language focus both to prepare students to write and when giving feedback.
Reflection Imagine you are a student in a course in which the instructor provides very focused correction on two or three structures in your writing for the entire term. Would you think this is beneficial? Would you want more, possibly unfocused feedback on all of your errors? (Assume that the teacher provides regular feedback on content, organization, and overall structure of the writing.)
How Should Writing Be Assessed? There is a good deal of literature on assessing writing, but there is room to discuss only the basics here. Generally, the two major decisions teachers and test developers need to make are how to elicit a writing sample (i.e., what prompt will be used?) and how the writing will be scored (i.e., what rubric will be used?). For large-scale testing, such as placement or proficiency proficiency testing, it can be difficult difficult to create one prompt promp t that is appropriate for a wide range of students and and that accurately accurately reflects ref lects a range of genres g enres that need to be assessed. assessed. In academic settings, a prompt eliciting an argumentative essay for which students have enough background information to write on is often used. A typical topic, such as one used in the TOEFL independent writing class, may be something like Should students bring laptops to
class? or Should students in your country be required to study a foreign language? Prompts can also include visuals such as Look at the pictures and tell a story about what is happening or, in an academic setting, Look at the two graphs and write about the conclusions that you can draw from these graphs . In addition, there is a move when testing academic writing to integrate writing with other skills. The TOEFL integrated writing task, for example, has students listen to a lecture and read an article to use as sources for their writing. Although such an integrated test likely better represents the kind of writing that is necessary for university students to do, it tests skills other than writing. Thus, it is important to consider what the test is supposed to measure (i.e., writing only or integrating integrating writin w ritingg with other skills). skills). These types of tests focus on placement or gate-keeping (e.g., who can enter a university). It’s important that these tests be valid, namely, that they measure what they claim they are measuring. In testing, the general rule of thumb is more is better because more samples o student behavior lead to more accurate assessment, but practicality issues require that the length of tests be limited. Thus, it is best to create prompts that are similar to tasks that students students will have to do in real life (in the case of a gate-kee gate -keeping ping test) or that they will w ill have to do in class (in the the case of o f a placement placeme nt test). In classroom assessment, there is often little distinction between a writing prompt and writing assignment because students are given assignments on which they are assessed as part of their grade. An exception would be in cases where language programs have common timed-writing tests. Timed-writing tests are somewhat controversial because they can lead to negative negative washback, meaning that the test might have a negative effect on what is taught in the classroom. In other words, teachers might understandably assign fewer papers and focus more on timed writing and, as a result, focus on the assessment context and not on what students need to write in real life. (If the test better matches the students’ goals, and teachers teach to the test, such a test is said to have positive washback, or a positive effect on teaching.) Alternatively, teachers might focus on papers in class, and then students find themselves unprepared to do a timed writing. Most teachers and program coordinators likely agree that some timed in-class writing is necessary to ensure students are doing their own work and that if students have to do timed writing in their other academic courses, it is beneficial to teach students students how to approach a timed-writin time d-writingg task. In both large-scale testing and classroom assessment, test developers and teachers need to decide how writing is to be graded. There are various types of rubrics, but the most common are holistic and analytic . A holistic rubric has raters assign one overall grade to a piece o writing. The rubric will usually include descriptors on a variety of features such as organization, vocabulary, and content, but the rater cannot give separate scores for different categories. An analytic scale such as the one in Table 1.1 1.1 includes five aspects of students’ writing that are to be given scores. There are benefits and drawbacks to each type of rubric. For example, holistic rubrics are faster for raters to use and, as some have argued, better
reflect how we assess writing when we read outside of an assessment context. Analytic rubrics, however, allow teachers and raters to better assess students who may have strengths in one area but not another, and they can provide students with more specific information about their writing skills. Not all rubrics divide up writing skills in the same way, but the ones in this rubric are commonly assessed. With analytic scales, each category need not be weighted in the same way. In the scale below, mechanics is worth half as much as the other categories given that the assigned score is to be divided in half. One could argue, for example, that mechanics is less important than the other features of the essay. In large-scale testing, it’s important to obtain interrater reliability. In other words, it’s important that the students’ scores are assessed in the same way by all raters. In the classroom, of course, it’s not Table 1.1 Revised Revised Composition Grading Scale
logistically feasible to have another rater. Nevertheless, clearly written rubrics can help teachers maintain some consistency across different students. In the classroom, teachers need to decide if it is possible to use the same rubric for all assignments. This is often not feasible because each assignment might focus on different rhetorical skills (e.g., to argue a point or o r to provide a detailed description ). ). Nevertheless, it is
good practice to provide students with the rubric on which they will be graded to help them understand what is involved in producing a good piece of writing. In addition, as mentioned earlier, these rubrics can be used in class to help students review and revise their own writing or to use when students give peer feedback.
Quiz Take the following short quiz to see what you have learned so far. Answers are given at the end, so don’t don’t peek. pee k. 1. Which Which of the the following is an example of a real-life genre? a. A letter to the editor of a local local newspaper. newspaper. b. A restaurant restaurant review to be posted online. online. c. Both a and b. 2. Which Which of the following following is NOT a good argument arg ument for teaching teaching specific real-life real-life genres? a. They are easy for beginners. beginners. b. Students may learn something about the the target culture. culture. c. Various genres are organized orga nized differently than a five-paragrap five-para graph h essay. 3. Which of the following is likely the most important factor with regard to effective written corrective feedback? a. It should should be provided by teachers and and not fellow fellow students. students. b. The reason reason for the error should should be explained. explained. c. Students need to engage engage in some way with the feedback. 4. Why is it poor practice practice to use a multiple-choice multiple-choice grammar test to assess students’ students’ ability to write an essay? a. It could could lead lead to negative negative washback. b. The test covers only one aspect of writing. writing. c. Any timed timed test is inappropriate for testing writing. writing. 5. Which of the following statements statem ents is true?
a. An analytic analytic scale is more valid v alid than a holistic scale. b. An analytic analytic scale likely likely represents how we evaluate writing writing outside of a classroom classroom context. c. An analytic analytic scale like likely ly gives students more information about their writing than a holistic scale would. Answers: 1. c; 2. a; 3. c; 4. a; 5. c
Conclusion Writing is an important activity in most language classrooms because it can help students focus on language that they will need for other skills. When the goal is language learning, short writing activities can be incorporated with listening, reading, and speaking activities. Furthermore, activities such as dictocomps or dictations, which can often be challenging, need not be graded and can be presented p resented to students as activities activities for focusing focusing on o n language. For students who need to write outside the classroom, teachers should design assignments and assessments to reflect real-life contexts. Teachers then need to help students through the process by developing appropriate prewriting activities that might focus on the language needed to complete the assignment, content related to the assignment, or the discourse structure structure of the target genre. g enre. In addition, addition, teachers need to have students revise for content and organization and edit their writing for language problems. It is important to remember that because of the benefits writing can have, students should do a lot of writing even when teachers do not have time to give feedback on every single piece of writing.
Suggested Reading Books
General Overviews of Teaching Issues Ferris, D. D. & Hedgcock, J. (2013). (201 3). Teaching L2 composition: Purpose, process, and practice . New York: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.
Reid, J. (Ed.). (2008). Writing myths . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Williams, J. (2004). Teaching writing in second and foreign language classrooms . New York: McGraw Hill.
Overviews of Research Casanave, C. P. (2003). Controversies in second language writing . Ann Arbor: University o Michigan Press. Leki, I., Cumming, A., & Silva, T. (2008). A synthesis of research on second language writing in English . New York: Routledge. Manchón, R. (Ed.). (2009). Writing in foreign language contexts: Learning, teaching, an research . Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Manchón, R. (Ed.). (2012). L2 writing development: Multiple perspectives . Boston/Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
Books With Teaching Ideas Burton, P. & Pennington, M. (Eds.). (2011). The college writing toolkit: Tried and tested ideas for teaching teaching college writing . Sheffield, UK: Equinox. Kasten, S. (Ed.). (2010). Effective second language writing . Alexandria: TESOL.
Writing Assessment Weigle, S. (2002). Assess University Press. Assessing ing writing writin g . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Collaborative Writing Storch, N. (2013). Collaborative writing in L2 classrooms . Bristol, UK: Multi-lingual Matters.
Genre-Based Writi Wr iting ng Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings . Cambridge: Cambridge University University Press. Swales, J. & Feak, C. (2011). Navigating academia: Writing supporting genres . Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Research Articles on the Topics Discussed Berg, E. C. (1999). (199 9). Preparing ESL students for peer response. TESOL Journal , 8 , 20–25. Brooks, L. & Swain, M. (2009). Languaging in collaborative writing: Creation of and response to expertise. In A. Mackey & C. Polio (Eds.), Multiple perspectives on interaction: Secon (pp. 58–89). New York: Routledge. language research in honor of Susan Susan M. Gass (pp. Hartshorn, K. J., Evans, N., Merrill, P., Sudweeks, R., Strong-Krause, D., & Anderson, N. (2010). Effects of dynamic corrective feedback on ESL writing accuracy. TESOL Quarterly, 44 , 84– 109. Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewer’s own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18 , 30–43. Suzuki, W. (2012). Written languaging, direct correction, and second language writing revision. Language Learning, 62 , 1110–1133. Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes. Language Learning, Learning, 46 , 327–369. Williams, Williams, J. (2012). The potential role(s) of o f writing in second language development. develop ment. Journal o Second Language Writing, 21 , 321–331.
Discussion Questions and Projects 1. Find an activity activity in a language textbook textboo k that does not include include any writing. writing. Decide on ways that writing writing could be added to help the students learn the the language. 2. Think of a real-life speaking task that does not involve writing. How might you create a lesson for that activity that includes writing as a way to get students to focus on language? 3. Consider the following assignments and what types of prewriting activities you might do. a. For students in an FL context: The government of the target culture is offering 100 scholarships to students from other countries to travel to their country to study language for a year. Write a 400-word essay explaining why you want to study there and what you hope to gain from the experience. You may include information about your current language skills, major, future plans, interests, and so on.
b. Provide students with a description of a hote hotell or inn inn in the target targe t language. Give them the following prompt: You spent three nights at this hotel and it was an outstanding travel experience. The location, room, and service were impeccable. Write an email to the management commending them on the experience. 4. Find a writing writing assignment assignment in a textbook or choose one that you have given your students. students. Create a form that students could could use for giving g iving peer feedback. 5. If you do not currently currently code student errors, find find some some examples example s of possible coding coding schemes and compare them. them . Which Which do you like best and least? Could you use any? 6. Imagine that you are giving your students an assignment in which they have to create a web site in the target language for visitors to your town. For example, if you are teaching English in Japan, the students would create a site for English speakers visiting Japan. If you are teaching German in the US, you would create a site for German speakers speake rs visiting visiting the US. How would wo uld you structur structuree the assignment to give all students a task? How would you scaffold students through the assignment? How would you assess the writing? 7. Examine the following two prompts. What kind kind of rubric would would you use to grade these assignments? assignments? a. Write a short letter to your pen pal in Quebec or another French-speaking part of Canada. Tell him or her that your close friend is going to travel there during the school vacation. Describe your friend as fully as possible. You may want to write about age, appearance, likes, and dislikes. You may also want to add any information you think your pen pal will find interesting. (Taken from http://web.stanford.edu/group/CFLP/ http://web.stanford.edu/group/CFLP/.) .) b. Graph interpretation: interpretation: Look at the hypothetical graph regarding regarding trends in the the average GPA of university students. Describe what is happening and then explain possible reasons for the trends. Your response should be about 250 words.
