CAMBRIDGE DELTA COURSE

LANGUAGE SKILLS SYSTEMS ASSIGNMENT

PART 1

FOCUS ON

WRITING

“The use of process writing approach as means to facilitate the scripts

of adult EFL learners”

Candidate’s Name: Paraskevi Andreopoulou

Centre Number: GR 108
Candidate’s Number:
Number of Words: 2556

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 Contents

1. The definition of writing and its significance in education ................................3

2. Approaches to writing …………………………………………………………….3

2.1 The Controlled-to-free Approach……………………………………………..3
2.2 The Free Writing Approach…………………………………………………..4
2.3 The Paragraph-Pattern Approach……………………………………………...4
2.3 The Grammar-Syntax Organisation Approach ……………………………....4
2.4 The Communicative Approach…………………………………………….…4
2.5 The Free Writing Approach ………………………………………………….4

3. The nature of writing process and its effectiveness in the EFL classroom..............5

4. Problems and difficulties learners face in the development of their writing skills
.................................................................................................................................6

5. Remedies and solutions are provided for the enhancement of writing skills in the
Greek EFL classroom ……………………………………………………........................7

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...8

7. List of References………………………………………………………………..9

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 1. The definition of writing and its significance in education

When we learn a second language, we learn to communicate with other people, to

understand them, to talk to them, read what they have written and write to them;
an integral part of participating fully in a new cultural setting with other people
that are not present the moment we communicate to them is the form of writing.

But the fact that people frequently have to communicate with each other in
writing is not the only reason to include writing as a part of our second-language
syllabus; we also need to teach them how to learn to write because writing first
reinforces the grammatical structures, vocabulary and idioms that we have been
teaching our students.
Secondly, when our students write, they also have to be adventurous with the
language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks. Thirdly,
when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language;
the effort to express ideas and the constant use of their hands, eyes and brain is a
unique way of reinforcing learning (A. Raimes 1983).

There have been numerous approaches to the teaching of writing in the

history of language teaching; traditionally, writing was viewed as a tool for the
practice and reinforcement of specific grammatical and lexical patterns, in which
accuracy was all important but content, and self-expression virtual non-priorities.
Learners were purely “writing to learn” as opposed to “learning to write” (Tribble
1996, p.118).

However, with the increase in attention to students` practical needs, born out
of functional/notional approaches and further developed in the various areas of
ESP, the importance of certain text types as skill learners might need has come to
the tore. This gradual increase in the status of writing as a skill, alongside with the
development of discoursal based approach and the general moves toward learned-
cent red syllabuses, has totally changed the view of writing( N. Holmes 2000-
2004) – but, still writing continues to be one of the most difficult areas for students
and teachers to tackle.

2. Approaches to Writing

Over the years a number of writing approaches have presented to make their place
in history by Raimes cited in Ghaith 2002:

• The Controlled-to-Free Approach in which speech and writing are served

to achieve mastery of grammatical, syntactic forms and mechanics by
copying and transforming paragraphs and sentences; with this approach
errors are avoided and students attempt free composition after they have

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 reached an intermediate level of proficiency-it emphasizes accuracy rather
than fluency.

• The Free-Writing Approach in which quantity rather than quality is

stressed – vast amounts of free writing on given topics with minimal
correction are assigned to learners with emphasis on content and fluency
rather than accuracy and form. Once the ideas are down on the page,
grammatical accuracy and organization follow. The teachers do not correct
pieces of free writing, but, they comment on the ideas expressed; concern
for “audience” and “content” are also mentioned.

• The Paragraph-Pattern Approach in which organization is stressed –

students copy paragraphs and imitate model passages, they identify general
and specific statements and choose to invent an appropriate topic sentence
or insert, delete sentences. It is based on the principle that in different
cultures people construct and organize communication with each other in
different ways.

• The Grammar-Syntax-Organisation Approach in which writing cannot

be seen as composed of separate skills which are learned sequentially.
Therefore, students should be trained to pay attention to organization while
they also work on the necessary grammar and syntax. This approach links
the purpose of writing to the forms that are needed to convey message.

• The Communicative Approach in which the purpose of writing and the

audience for it are stressed. The learners are encouraged to behave like
writers in real life and ask themselves the why (purpose) and who
(audience) crucial questions. Some people feel it is better when writing is
truly a communicative act, with a writer writing for a real reader.

• The Process Writing Approach in which the teaching of writing has

moved away from a concentration on written product to an emphasis on the
process of writing; the learners generate ideas, think of the purpose and
audience, write multiple drafts in order to present written products that
communicate their own ideas – the students are also given time to tray
ideas and feedback on the content of what they write their in their drafts.
As such, writing becomes a process of discovery for the students as they
discover new language ideas and forms to express them. Furthermore,
learning to write is seen as a developmental process that helps students
write as professional authors do, choosing their own topics and genres, and
writing from their own experiences or observations. A writing process
approach requires that teachers give students’ greater responsibility for and
ownership their own learning.

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 3. The nature of writing process and its effectiveness in EFL classroom

It is widely known that adult learners of English are not accustomed to

collaborating to produce a piece of writing, to work out their own solutions to the
problems they set themselves (White and Arndt 1991).

It views all writing as creative since the writer is responsible for producing
the text that evolves from the raw material, which is generated almost entirely
from the writer`s imagination. What is important for us as teachers of English is to
engage our learners in the creative process; to excite them about how their texts
are coming into being; to give them insights into how they operate as they create
their work; to alter their concepts of what writing involves; and above all, that
evaluation is not just the province of the teacher alone at the final stage of the
process, but it is equally the concern and responsibility of the writer at every stage.

What differentiates a process-focused approach from a product-cent red

one is the divergent outcome of writing with as many different outcomes as there
are writers. What counts in this approach is how the writer composes the model
text, or from the activities based on it; by contrast, process-focused lessons may
introduce texts written by other people, but only after the students have written
something of their own, so that the text is now a resource for further ideas rather
than a model for mimicry. A typical sequence of writing-process activities would
look like this (: ibid):

• Discussion (class, small group & pair)

• Brainstorming / making notes / asking questions
• Fast writing / selecting ideas / establishing a viewpoint
• Rough draft
• Preliminary self-evaluation
• Arranging information / structuring the text
• First draft
• Group / peer evaluation and responding
• Conference
• Second draft
• Self-evaluation / editing / proof-reading
• Finished draft
• Final responding to draft

As teachers of English, we should aim at creating an environment in

which our students are engaged in and enthused by it, and feel that credit
is given for every aspect of their effort which goes into the writing
process. Our goal is to present writing as lively, stimulating process,
which Lu Chi cited in White & Arndt 1991 puts the “matching of matter
and manner”, such that it becomes “the ferry” between the writer and the
reader.

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 4. Problems and difficulties learners face in the development of their
writing skills
Drawing upon the relevant literature and my personal experience in the Greek EFL
context, Greek adult learners are still in a difficult position of developing and
producing a proper piece of writing, since they do not only have to deal with word
choice, grammar, syntax and punctuation, but, also they also have to expound their
views and argument ate them by dividing them into their respective paragraphs
and linking them to their appropriate cohesive devices, so that it looks like a brief,
concise and comprehensible piece of writing.

According to Sharwood-Smith (1972), writing is essentially

communication – the way a given message is expressed should always be
determined in the context of the whole communicative situation; this is sometimes
overlooked both when dealing with the grammar side of writing and when dealing
with writing as the free expression of thoughts and feelings; more specifically,
writing should be seen in two lights- first, as a language problem of assembling
words to form grammatical sentences and as a rhetorical problem of teaching
students to organize words and patterns so as to fulfill a rhetorical aim ,such as
persuading a friend to take a course of action.

Indeed, with native speakers a writing course can lay greater stress on
rhetorical problems, though it must necessarily include producing the proper
language. On the other hand, with L2 learners language problems should definitely
play a major role, especially at the earliest stages. R. J. Owens` belief cited in
Sherwood- Smith (ibid) is the language problems are “grossly underestimated”
and that we shift emphasis to rhetorical ones much too soon. He thinks that “model
sentences and contextualized practice in abundance are vital to satisfactory
achievement”.

According to Flower (1981) cited in Chenoweth (1987), unskilled

writers fail to consider the problems that readers might experience in
understanding their text, because they assume what they have written makes sense
and there is no need to add more explanation and detail, or rearrange ideas to make
their paper better (Perl 1980, Beach 1976); they just assume that all they need to
do is polish it.

As for more proficient writers, they edit their papers, but they also spend
considerable time and effort working on their overall content to see that what
they want to say is said and is said in a way their readers can understand (Faigley
& White, 1981) cited in Chenoweth (1987). As Raimes (1985) urges us not to
forget, our students, as L2 writers, both skilled and unskilled ones do face the
common problem of getting their meaning across effectively and they cannot be
understood by their readership; they lack strategies for handling the content of
their essays as a whole –they work on bits and pieces only (Sommers 1980,
Beach 1976) – and the topics of the essays ought to be motivating and
interesting, as well so that our students will put effort into their work.

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 Finally, two sources of error in L2 writing ought to be taken into consideration
– the cognitive and the social one, which interrelates four aspects of learning: the social
and cultural milieu (which determines beliefs about language and culture), individual
learner differences (related to motivation and language aptitude), the setting (formal and
informal learning contexts), and learning outcomes. Instrumental motivation, though,
acknowledges the role that external influences and incentives play in strengthening the
learner’s desire to achieve – students who are instrumentally motivated are interested in
learning the language for a particular purpose, i.e. writing.

The other source of error is a cognitive one, which has to do with various types of
knowledge, including discourse knowledge, understanding of audience, and
sociolinguistic rules (O`Malley & Chamot, 1990); organization at both the
sentence and the text level is also important for effective communication of
meaning, and for the quality of the written product (Scardamalia & Bereiter
,1987), i.e. coherence problems have to do with not knowing how to organize the
text and to store relevant information.

Revision is also a cognitively demanding task for L2 learners because it not

only involves task definition, evaluation, strategy selection and modification of
text in the writing plan (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996), but also the ability of students
to analyze and evaluate the feedback they receive on their writing.

Emotional influences and language transfer, positive and negative result

from similarities and differences between the previously acquired language and
the target one (Odlin 1989) and they also have their say in the production of a
piece of writing. (Myles, 2002).

5. Remedies and solutions for the enhancement of

Writing skills in the EFL classroom

Our role as teachers in responding to student writing is facilitation in the form of

positive intervention during the process of writing for formative feedback which
will help them improve it; a dialogue over the text to which both parties contribute
and by discussion together they solve any problems that might arise. To be more
specific, self-monitoring (Charles 1990) involves:

1. Students draft and “monitor” their texts

2. Teacher / editor respond in writing to monitored documents
3. Students respond to editorial comment and rewrite their drafts
Teacher / editor responds to student comment and second draft, taking into account
of the extent to which the writer has been able to deal with the problems identified
during the self-monitoring phase.
In this way, our students learn to take more responsibility for what they write,
for getting their meaning across to their readership and for their own improvement
in their skill of writing.

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 Another remedy for improving student performance in writing is a short
meeting between the students and teachers (conferencing), in which the meaning
of composition is addressed first and then form, according to Marshall (1986); in
the initial conference learners discuss their ideas for papers, in the next one, they
bring their first drafts and discuss them with their teachers- this sort of groups
dynamics helps learners speak up and discuss their writing problems (Brender
2004).

They are valuable because they allow students to control the interaction,
clarify responses, negotiate meaning and enable teachers to assess how students
react to their feedback, and how their comments help students revise their writing
(Shin 2003).

Moreover, a collection of readings and exercises on which students are asked

to write a “reflection” essay, that will enhance peer-sharing, give reveal their
strengths and weaknesses in basic writing skills; it provides details and
experiences that enrich and clarify cognitive information and gives practice in
knowledge application, as well as the opportunity to interact with competent
writing in the genres being studied (Taylor 2003).

Furthermore, there is scaffolding which involves prewriting discussion,

group drafting of the text, individual speaking and writing activity, feedback in
which time is devoted to learners` discussing, composing and responding to each
other`s draft texts; it helps learners establish links between their beliefs, attitudes
and prior knowledge and the topic they are writing about – out of this sense of
ownership develops a clear sense of why they are writing, who they are writing for
and what information they need to include in their texts (Cotterall & Cohen 2003).

All the aforementioned belongs to process writing approach, since it is a

process of several steps, beginning with generating ideas, writing to discover what
one wants to say, revising, getting feedback from various readers (between
revisions) and writing again; only at the later stages is editing done for
grammatical and mechanical accuracy (Keh 1990).

6. Conclusion

Even adults need to be taught how to work independently to balance the demands
of those competing interests which affect the quality of their writing (Taylor
2003); rather than being expected to turn in a finished product right away, they are
asked for invention heuristics and pre-writing exercises (Myers 1997). In other
words, creative writing encourages students to venture along the path of self-
expression since it involves them personally, taking time to explore the language
and experiment freely with it (Mohamed 2004). Consequently, learners become
more involved in their own learning process and remain motivated (Hedge 1998).

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 List of References

Arndt V. & White R., 1991 “Process Writing” Longman Group UK

Limited 1991

Brender A., {The Language Teacher Online 22_07} “Conferencing: An

Interactive Way to Teach Writing”. Retrieved on World Wide Web on
23/08/2007

Charles M., “Responding to problems in written English using a student

self-monitoring technique” ELT Journal Volume 44/4 October 1990 ©
Oxford University Press 1990

Chenoweth N. A., “The need to teach rewriting” ELT Journal Volume 41/1
January 1987 © Oxford University Press 1987

Cotterall S. and Cohen R. “Scaffolding for second language writers:

producing an academic essay” ELT Journal Volume 57/2 April 2003 ©
Oxford University Press

Ghaith Dr.Ghazi “Cycles I, II & III of Basic Education- Writing”; www

document – file://A:\Writing- Dr Ghazi. Files\Managing the Writing
Process.htm
Retrieved on 22/08/2007

Hedge T., “Writing” 1988 ©Oxford University Press

Holmes N.,“The use of process-oriented approach to facilitate the planning

and production stages of writing for adult students of English as a Foreign
or Second Language”; www document – file//A:\Scott`s listening article
1.files\processw1_nicola.htm Retrieved on 23/08/2007

Keh C. L. “A Design for a Process-Approach Writing Course” English

Teaching Forum January 1990

Mohamed N., “Free Expression” English Teaching Professional Issue 30

January 2004

Myers S., “Teaching Writing as a Process and Teaching Sentence-Level

Syntax: Reformulating as ESL Composition Feedback”; TESL-EJ ISSN
1072-4303 Vol.2 No.4 A-2 June 1997 www. Document- Teaching Writing
as a Process and Teaching Sentence-Level Syntax.ht
Retrieved on 23/08/2007

Myles J., “Second Language Writing and Research: The Writing Process
and Error Analysis in Student Texts” TESL-EJ ISSN 1072-4303 A-1

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 September 2002 Vol.6 No.2; www document –
A:\ALONSO~1.FIL\SECOND~1.HTM retrieved on 23/08/2007

Raimes A., “Techniques in Teaching Writing” 1983 Oxford University

Press

Sharwood-Smith M. A., “Teaching Written English: Problems and

Principles” TESOL Quarterly March 1972

Shin Sarah J. “The reflective L2 writing teacher” ELT Journal Volume 57/1
January 2003 © Oxford University Press

Taylor M. E., “Using collateral material to improve writing performance”

ELT Journal Volume 57/2 April 2003 © Oxford University Press

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