22. State the role and place of writing as a communicative skill in teaching English.

Writing as a skill. Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It, too, is more complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be the hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way. Here are some of the micro-skills involved in writing. The writer needs to:

• use the orthography correctly, including the script, and spelling and punctuation conventions.

• use the correct forms of words. This may mean using forms that express the right tense, or case or gender.

• put words together in correct word order.

• use vocabulary correctly.

• use the style appropriate to the genre and audience.

• make the main sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, and object, clear to the reader.

• make the main ideas distinct from supporting ideas or information.

• make the text coherent, so that other people can follow the development of the ideas.

• judge how much background knowledge the audience has on the subject and make clear what it is assumed they don't know.

Writing skills are an important part of communication. Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations. The role of writing in our life has changed over recent years. It is the result of the popularity of e-mail, Internet, mobile phones, Skype services. We do very little writing in our everyday life. May be brief notes to friends or colleagues, answers on question forms, some reminders or postcards.The need for longer, formal written work seems to become lower over years and this finds its reflection in the classrooms where writing activities also become less in comparison with other skills. Another reason is that most SS struggle with writing. It is the most difficult skill to acquire among other language skills. It is difficult to do in our own language and what we can expect from writing in a foreign language. Despite all these things, still writing as a skill is very important in teaching and learning a FL.

23. Planning is a necessary prerequisite for effective teaching. Say why. List some questions you would ask yourself before planning a lesson. Stages of a lesson plan.

Lesson planning Planning is a thinking skill. Planning is imagining the lesson before it happens. It involves prediction, sequencing, organizing and simplifying. It is essential, very important to prepare your lesson plan before class. An unprepared teacher who thinks that he or she can do quite well without a plan, relying on his personality, quick thinking and conversation is both unprofessional and ineffective. Even quite experienced and professional teachers write plans, not so detailed may be some notes but still they think over beforehand what they will do during the lesson. The purpose of planning:

• For teachers a plan gives the lesson a framework, an overall shape.

• For students a plan shows that the teacher has devoted time to thinking about the class.

• For the observer gives a clear idea of what the teacher intends in order to judge how well that intention is carried through.

The teacher needs two kinds of plans to work successfully: the plan of a serious of lessons for a unit of a course book or a unit plan and a daily plan for a particular class period or one lesson. The unit plan includes nine columns:

1. The number of class-periods;

2. The objectives of each period;

3. Language material;

4-7 language skills

8. Accessories

9. Homework

Stages of a LESSON PLAN. Planning is a thinking skill. Planning is imagining the lesson before it happens. It involves prediction, sequencing, organizing and simplifying. It is essential, very important to prepare your lesson plan before class. An unprepared teacher who thinks that he or she can do quite well without a plan, relying on his personality, quick thinking and conversation is both unprofessional and ineffective. It the example of the lesson plan:

THEME: topic being discussed

OBJECTIVES: goals that the teacher has for the students. ‘Students will …..’ The lesson should have an aim, smth you expect your students to be able to do at the end of the lesson that they could not do at the beginning.

MATERIAL NEEDED: things that will be needed for the lesson: markers, CDs, paper, cards, worksheets etc.

RESOURSES: where the material or information was taken from.

TIME: 45 minutes

WARMUP/ICEBREAKERS

• Background knowledge and prior experiences is activated.

• SS’s lives and feelings are used to stimulate language.

• Tongue is warmed up for topic.

• Review of prior material.

• Usually is around the topic of a lesson.

Type of activity: Question, Picture / Photo, Clip from a video, Proverb, Short story, Song

PRE-TASK

• Ss prepare for the topic and for the later discussions.

• Unknown words are defined

• Prediction focuses Ss for the task. As they do the task, they see if their predictions were correct.

Type of activity: Vocabulary – 10-15 new words that will help to understand and be used in further discussion. Make predictions about the topic based upon the vocabulary or the title of the reading, listening, etc.

PRESENTATION

• This is the major part of the lesson plan

• SS are given input, so that they later can communicate. (output)

• A context in which new language is learned naturally is introduced- authentic material is used.

Type of activity: Lecture, Listening activity, Reading activity

FOLLOW UP

• Ss are given opportunity to speak,

• SS reuse their vocabulary,

• SS understanding of what was taught is checked,

• Written or oral fluency is developed.

Speaking activities: Discussion, Debate, Ranking activity, Information gap; Written assignment: Essay, Letter

WRAP UP

• Review of what was covered in the lesson,

• Assign homework

Homework assignment: Written reading