Post on 23-Dec-2015
description
How to help students improve their writing skills
Olha Madylus
Writing: Solutions to Mistakes
Aims of this session
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• To explore challenges in developing writing skills
• To question current approaches to developing writing
• To suggest strategies to address these problems:
• Scaffolding writing
• Collaborative writing
• Sub-skills focussed tasks
• Marking written work
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• They rarely check their work let alone rewrite.
• They don’t pay attention to my corrections.
• They keep making the same mistakes.
• They say it takes too much time and effort.
• They don’t make the same mistakes in a grammar exercise.
Teachers’ comments
A typical approach?
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Students work through a course book unit based on a topic.
Teacher sets a written task based on that unit for homework.
Students do the task at home, alone, and hand it in.
Teacher corrects / marks it and returns it to students.
Little progress is evident.
Possible flaws in that system
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• Writing is left until a unit is completed.
• Writing is not done regularly in class.
• Writing is done alone.
• Students are expected to write a long text.
• There’s a lot of marking that teachers have to do.
• Students find self-correction boring.
• Students see a lot of corrections /’red ink’ on the page
= feel like ‘failures’
How teens deal with criticism
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How teens deal with criticism
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Blah blah!
I can’t
hear you!
She told me
I’m stupid, so
I must be
stupid!
It’s too
boring to
do it
again. Why am I doing
this?
John Atkinson’s theory of
achievement motivation
“All individuals can be characterised by two
learned drives, a motive to approach success
and a motive to avoid failure.”
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A scaffolded approach
9
Students
have as
much
support as
needed to
succeed
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Writing tasks are
• short and regular
• achievable
• collaborative
• clear as to what sub-skills are being developed
• creative
• discussed / analysed
• celebrated
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10
Professional Development 11 Solutions, Intermediate, p91
For example
One sentence descriptions
His mouth, full of metal teeth, twisted into an unnatural smile
and his eyes were dull yet full of menace.
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Your turn
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For example
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Best opening lines.
Book reviews:
I have read many books in English, but this was the most
exciting, best described and weirdest book I have ever read.
Collaborative writing
share ideas
cross-skills approach
awareness of process
easier to see others’ mistakes
peer correction
teacher at hand
fewer distractions
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Focus on sub skills
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Correct grammar Range of vocabulary
Accurate punctuation Correct layout
Correct register Accurate spelling
Sentence structures Linking
Imagination Planning
Drafting Proofreading
Communication
Focus on sub skills
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Deconstruct and reconstruct
Focus on one or two skills at a time and slowly combine them
in writing tasks.
For example
As I walked into the …….. bank on a ………… Tuesday
morning, I immediately realised something was …….. wrong.
………… customers were lying ……………. on the floor and
two ……….. men wearing …………. were holding ………..guns
and shouting……………..
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For example
Brainstorm at least 5 reasons for
and 5 reasons against
allowing people under 16 years of age to:
(a) marry (b) vote and (c) drive.
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Creative writing
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Where are they? Who are they?
What are they
saying?
Where is he
going?
What were they
doing earlier?
What did they have
for breakfast?
Reasons to edit
• Share
• Portfolios
• Being a writer
• School web site / magazine
• Story of the month award
• Write letters to real people
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Marking work
On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.
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On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.
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Great introduction –
very exciting
On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.
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Super contrast
between big and
tiny
On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.
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Highly dramatic
On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.
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Accurate grammar
Learning from mistakes?
Adults have a developed anterior cingulate cortex, which
… can help detect mistakes.. This part of the brain is still
being wired in teenagers, making it more difficult for them,
even when they recognise a mistake, to learn from it.
The Teenage Brain, Frances E Jensen, Thorsons, 2015
“Our job as teachers is not to point out
differences between our students’ language and
standard English. That is too negative a role.
Our job is to encourage the growth of language
by appreciating the learning steps.”
Edge, Julian
“Mistakes and Correction”
Longman
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The aim of marking
• To show students what they are doing right
• To show students where they need to make improvements
and how
• To encourage students
• To enable students to reflect on their own writing
• To celebrate the effort the students have made
• To enable teachers to notice skills / language areas that need
to be readdressed in class
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Marking ideas
• Select and make clear what aspects of the writing you are
going to mark
• Highlight everything good about the writing
• Choose 2 positive and 2 negative aspects of the writing to
focus on
• Respond to the meaning not just to the errors
• Don’t use red pen
• Peer marking
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www.olhamadylusblog.com
Thank you for taking part
We look forward to welcoming you to more OUP webinars in the future
www.oup.com/elt/events
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