Material for Teaching Writing
Writing in the strict sense of the word is derived from speech, and is, in fact, an imperfect visual representation of it, for such purpose as communication at a distance and the keeping of records. Writing is the only conventional device for recording so
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9. MATERIAL FOR TEACHING WRITING
INTRODUCTION
Writing in the strict sense of the word is derived from speech, and is, in fact, an imperfect visual representation of it, for such purpose as communication at a distance and the keeping of records. Writing is the only conventional device for recording sounds. Writing can be fun, students or learners should not worry about the perfection of the sentences and the logical development of ideas. In real writing situations, people write unplanned without revising or editing their writings such as formal letters, educational or some meetings notes, instructions, and examination papers. In fact, there is a place for both programmed and spontaneous writing. In this way both the teachers and the students will find the writing classes more enjoying rather than dull and boring. The students will be more motivated to learn and the teachers will enjoy their teaching. The students will wait for the teacher to come in the class instead of waiting him to go out. Over the past three decades language teachers have encountered with serious changes in the ways that languages are taught. The focus has widened from teaching of grammatical structures to the fostering of communicative ability (Stapa, 2004). Writing has developed and accumulated many insights into the nature of language learning and teaching along with speaking, listening, and reading. Writing is something, which has an aim, purpose and meaning to convey. It is not just a grammatical exercise and a sequence of sentences. “The ultimate meaning of the word writing, is to use orthography in order to construct grammatically-correct sentences which communicate meaning to the readers” (Hubbard et al., 1999, p. 6). There are different approaches involved in the teaching of writing. There was the traditional product-oriented approach that remained in command of the situation for decades. It laid emphasis on the product i.e. the written texts.” The belief was that if we identified model texts written by accomplished/competent writers and gave these to students to read, they would, by osmosis, imbibe all the qualities of good writing and become good writers themselves. Unfortunately this approach did not work for many students and they continued to write poorly” (Oluwadiya, 1992, p. 12). In this approach the teacher remains attentive to form instead of content. Here syntax, grammar, mechanics and organization are more important. The process-oriented one replaced the traditional product-oriented approach. In it the whole process of writing was to be explored and exploited. This approach was meant to find out how M. Azarnoosh et al. (Eds.), Issues in Materials Development, 93–108. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
J. MUKUNDAN et al.
the skilled writers write, what is their thought process before picking pen in their fingers. Smith, quoted in Oluwadiya (1992), states that “for the competent writers writing is a nonlinear, recursiveand generative process that involves several steps or stages, which are pre-writing, composing
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