TSL3107 Teaching Writing Skills in The Primary Esl Classroom

LESSON 9:
LESSON PLANNING
TSL3107
TEACHING WRITING SKILLS IN
THE PRIMARY ESL CLASSROOM
Mohd Iskandar Daud
IPG Kampus Kota Bharu
1
Mohd Iskandar TSL3107 Lesson 9
Content
What is a lesson plan
Reasons for a lesson plan
General principals of teaching
Pedagogical Principles
Stages of a writing lesson
Pre-writing stage
While-writing stage
Post-writing stage

2
What is a lesson plan?
Some defs:
1. A map / A framework of a lesson
2. Highly organized outlines that specify the subject matter
to be covered, the order in which the information will be
presented, and the timeline for delivering each section or
component of the subject matter
3. An art of combining a number of different elements into
a coherent whole so that a lesson has an identity which
students can recognise, work within and react to (Harmer,
2001)
4. A unified set of activities that cover a period of classroom
time (Brown, 2001)

3
Reasons for designing a lesson plan
Why is designing lesson plan important?
1. Creating an effective lesson plan is the key to effective
teaching and a critical factor in achieving positive student
outcomes
2. One of reasons is that it helps them consider very
important elements and questions before the actual
instruction, and thus enhance the probability of successful
teaching activities.
3. Lesson plans provide a framework for an individual
lesson. They should contain sufficient detail for another
teacher to be able to deliver the lesson in your absence.

4
Reasons for designing a lesson plan (cont)
4. The process of planning each lesson forces you to reflect
on what you want to accomplish in each class and how best
to do so.
5. Planning helps you control how class time is used and, as
a result of reflection, use that time as productively as
possible.
6. Lesson plans can be used, with revisions and
adaptations, each time you teach the class and they can be
put in your teaching portfolio, to be used when you apply
for better teaching positions.
Any other reasons you can think of?

5
Other reasons for designing a lesson plan
It will lead you through the class
It will allow you to combine different activities or
exercises thinking about your students
characteristics
It will help you to design a class with different
components to keep your students motivation and
interest
Something the teacher wants to improve (Lindsay,
2000)
And a host of other reasons!
6
General principles of teaching
A. COGNITIVE PRINCIPLES
(1) Automat (2) Meaningful Learning (3) The Anticipation of Reward
(4) Intrinsic Motivation (5) Strategic Investment

B. AFFECTIVE PRINCIPLES
(6) Language Ego (7) Self-Confidence (8) Risk-Taking (9) The
Language-Culture Connection

C. LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES
(10) The Native Language Effect (11) Interlanguage
(12) Communicative Competence

7
Principles for designing writing techniques (H.D., Brown,
2001):
1. Incorporate practices of good writers. Eg:
Focus on a goal or main idea in writing
Perceptively gauge their audience
Spend some time (but not too much) planning to write
Easily let their first ideas flow onto the paper
Follow a general organizational plan as they write
Solicit and utilize feedback on their writing
Are not wedded to certain surface structures (?)
Revise their work willingly and efficiently
Patiently make as many revisions as needed

8
2. Balance process and product
Writing is a composing process that requires multiple drafts
this leads to effective product
Therefore, lead students carefully through appropriate stages
in the process of composing
Nonetheless, dont get too caught up in the stages leading up to
the final product keep also insight a clear, articulate, well-
organized, effective piece of writing
Make students see everything leading up to the process is
worth the effort
9
3. Account for cultural/literary backgrounds
Make sure your techniques DO NOT ASSUME that your
students know English rhetorical conventions
Help them understand different values in the culture of the
target language
Help them understand
Be patient
10
4. Connect reading and writing
Clearly learners learn to write by carefully observing what is
already written
By reading and studying a variety of relevant types of texts,
learners can gain important insights both about how they
should write and about subject matter that may become the
topic of writing
Hence, giving learners sample writings can be very helpful
11
5. Provide as much authentic writing as possible
Whether writing is real writing or display writing, it can still be
authentic through:
Making the purposes of writing very clear to the learners
Specifying overtly who the audience is
Making at least some intent in conveying meaning
Example of authentic writings:
Class newsletters
Writing letters to people outside class
Writing a script for a skit or drama
Writing a resume
Writing advertisements, etc

12
6. Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting,
drafting and revising stages
Prewriting stage generating ideas through reading,
brainstorming, listing, clustering, etc
The drafting and revising stages fall under while-
writing stage.
Drafting and revising stages are the CORE process of writing
Use strategies like free-writing, peer-reviewing, editing for
grammar, read aloud, proof-reading, etc
May include post-writing stage too to consolidate
learning
13
7. Strive to offer techniques that are as interactive as
possible
Process approach offers interactivity students work in
pairs/groups to generate ideas, to edit, etc
It is also very learner-centred (students work together to
brainstorm ideas, to collaborate, etc)
Writing techniques that focus on purposes other than
compositions (letters, memos, forms, directions, short reports,
etc) are also subject to the principles of interactive classrooms.
Writing is not necessarily a solitary activity
What makes a good writer can most effectively learned in a
community of learners.
14
8. Sensitively apply methods of responding to and
correcting your students writing
Error correction in writing must be approached in different
manner- may be different stages need different application
You may start early in drafting and revising stages at this stage
consider errors among several features of the whole process of
responding to students writing give comments, let them self-
correct, or peer-correct (you are an ally at this stage, just
facilitate)
Hold conference with the student, written comment may not
suffice
Only assume the role as a judge/evaluator when the final work is
turned in
15
8. (cont)
Guidelines to responding to first draft:
Resist temptation to correct local (minor) grammatical errors; major
(global) errors may be indicated directly (eg; underlining) or indirectly
(eg: through a check/tick next to the line where error occurs)
Resist temptation to rewrite students sentences
Comment holistically, in terms of the clarity of the overall thesis and
general structural organization
Comment on introductory paragraph
Comment on features that appear to be irrelevant to the topic
Question clearly inadequate word choices and awkward expression
within those paragraphs/sentences that are relevant to the topic

16
8. (cont)
For subsequent drafts your comments may include all the ones in
slide 15 and more:
Minor grammatical and mechanical errors should be indicated, but
not corrected for the students
Comment on the specific clarity and strength of all main ideas,
supporting details and on argument and logic
Comment on any further word choices and expressions that may not
be awkward but are not as clear or direct as they could be
Check cohesive devices within and across paragraphs
In academic papers, comment on documentation, citing sources,
evidence and other support
Comment on the adequacy and strength of the conclusion.

17

9. Clearly instruct students on the rhetorical, formal
conventions of writing
Introduce the formal properties of each type of writing you teach
Dont assume students can absorb these by themselves
A reading approach / product based approach might be useful:
Give model
Analyze features and the language use
Thesis statement / Topic sentence
Development of main ideas
Supporting ideas
etc

18
Other important principles:
The topic must be stated in the curriculum specs
Identify the learning outcomes including the
language demands of the teaching and learning.
Maintain and make explicit the same learning
outcomes for all the learners.
Begin with context embedded tasks which make the
abstract concrete.

19
Pre-writing
The discovery stage - Prewriting includes everything that a student does
before beginning to draft a paper
Generate raw material, finding out what you have to say, using the
creative, spontaneous parts of your mind as you explore your thoughts.
Working on the ideas you generate with your pre-writing will help you
find a focus, a point to which your ideas relate
Here are four techniques that will encourage you to think about and
develop a topic and get words on paper: (1) freewriting, (2) questioning
(Why? When? Where? Who? and How?) (3) making a list, and (4)
diagramming.
General prewriting can help you generate ideas and focused prewriting
can help you to organize and refine your thoughts.
Any of these techniques can be used in combination with another, as
you will see in the following sections.

20
Pre-writing
We can further classified prewriting into five activities: reading as a writer,
generating ideas, organizing ideas, contextualizing ideas, and coming up with a
working thesis.
With most academic papers, prewriting begins with reading a text for many
reasons (to understand pattern, to find ideas, etc)
Generate ideas - to freewrite, or brainstorm, or write a discovery draft, dialogue,
etc
Organizing Ideas - draft formal outlines, informal outlines, drawing arrows to
establish possible connections, try to cluster related ideas beneath them, etc
Contextualizing ideas - the history of idea, other relevant ideas to topic, how
does it relate to other ideas that we've been discussing, etc
Working thesis - this sentence, if well crafted, will help the writer to stay focused
on the argument she is trying to make, do let the student know that, at this
stage, they have only a working thesismost writers revise their theses as they
go, in order to accommodate shifts in perspectives and new ideas.
21
While-writing
The writing process begins.
It may start with drafting, editing, rewriting until the
final work is achieved.
Information gathered during the pre-writing can be
used eg: format, structure, words, other
conventions, etc

22
Post-writing
An extended activity(ies) based on the activity in while-
writing
Post-writing activities help students polish their work.
Many writers look at post-writing and rewriting as where
the real work of writing begins.
Teaching your students to complete post-writing activities
with each assignment will help them to grow as writers and
gain confidence in their writing skills.
Example: Read the Paper Aloud, Group Critiques, Line
Editing, Reflection Essay

23
Example
Example of activities for stages of a writing lesson
24
Tutorial
(Use KBSR Curr. Specs for Year 4/5/6)
In groups, plan an outline of a writing lesson for
Under average learners
Average learners.
Above average learners
In lesson 10, share the outline with peers and get
feedback from them by
Presenting the outline of the lessons together with appropriate
activities
Inviting constructive comments of the prepared lessons

25
ISL
Read Chitravelu, N.et.at (2005). ELT
Methodolology: Principles and Practice, Selangor:
Fajar Bakti. (p182 185)
Read other relevant reading materials
26

TSL3107 Teaching Writing Skills in The Primary Esl Classroom

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

TSL3107 Teaching Writing Skills in The Primary Esl Classroom

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

LESSON 9:

Вам также может понравиться