3.4 Narrative writing in esl classes

ESL students gain many skills from practicing narrative writing; they can practice English storytelling conventions, learn more about word choice, work on grammar and use English as a mode of expression, among others. For the greatest success, look for narrative writing activities that focus tightly on one or two skills, engage the students and offer the chance for feedback

Because the use of peer response is a key component of classrooms teaching writing as a process in the LI environment, many ESL teachers embraced the idea of having students read and/ or listen to each other's papers for the purpose of providing feedback and input to each other as well as helping each other gain a sense of audience. But embracing a philosophy without understanding how to translate it to the L2 environment can often lead to rather disappointing results. That is, simply putting students together in groups of four or five, each with rough draft in hand, and then having each student in turn read his or her paper aloud, followed by having the other members of the group react to the strengths and weaknesses of the paper in the role of interested audience member, indicating further reader needs that have not been addressed, is not a format likely to work with even the most sophisticated class of ESL students. Because ESL students lack the language competence of native speakers, who can often react intuitively to their classmates' papers, peer responding in the ESL classroom must be modeled, taught, and controlled in order for it to be a valuable activity.

One way to control peer response is for teachers to provide a short list of directed questions which students address as they read their own or other students' papers. A first exercise of this type can involve giving students a short checklist of attributes to look for in their own papers, such as to check for a particular grammatical feature that might have been discussed in class (e.g., subject- verb agreement) or to check to assure that no irrelevancies have been included. The checklist is submitted with the paper as a way for the student to assume responsibility for reading over his or her paper carefully. Next, students can be trained to read and respond to other students' papers by reviewing an essay written by a student in a previous class and working through, as a class, a peer editing sheet that asks a few specific questions that would elicit both a general reaction to the paper and suggestions for improvement. As the students gain practice in reading and analyzing each other's papers and their awareness of the conventions of writing increases, the questions can be made more complex and varied. Some typical questions to begin with might include these: “What is the main purpose of this paper?” “What have you found particularly effective in the paper?” “Do you think the writer has followed through on what the paper set out to do?” Some peer guideline sheets for students who have more practice in the technique might include the following steps: “Find at least three places in the essay where you can think of questions that have not been answered by the writer. Write those questions in the margins as areas for the writer to answer in the next draft.” “Read only the introduction and then write what you predict the rest of the essay will discuss. Then read the essay and compare your predictions with the actual content of the essay.”

In order to maximize the value of the feedback to the EFL student, responses should be written, incidentally providing practice in the valuable skill of text analysis for the student commentator. These written responses can be given to the student writer with or without the anonymity of the student reader preserved or used as the basis for oral discussion between reader(s) and writer. The teacher might also want to read the student feedback sheets to assess the analytical skills of the student readers.

Building Blocks: Words and Sentences

Give students a chance to get creative by collaboratively building narrative stories one word and one sentence at a time, which lets them practice listening, sequencing and fluency in addition to writing. To begin, have the students sit in a circle. Explain that everyone will participate in telling a story by contributing one word; you may find it helpful to give them a topic to work within. Start the story off with the first word, and then have the story continue around for a predetermined length of time. Set a time limit for choosing individual words, as well, so that students must think quickly.

Give feedback; then increase the difficulty by having students contribute an entire sentence. Once they’ve produced an entire story collaboratively, have each student write his or her own version to have a written text for feedback.

Chaining to Acting

Kinesthetic learners enjoy rearranging and acting out stories in this activity that focuses on reading, sequencing and writing. Before class, prepare a few short narrative texts by cutting them up into individual sentences; for low-level classes, use short texts, but don’t be afraid to give high-level students a text of several paragraphs. In class, put the students into pairs and have them chain the sentences into the correct order.

Ask one student from each pair to act out the story when they have finished. Next, ask students to think of their own story, assigning topics if they need prompting. One of the pair should act out the story while the other one writes notes; they can then switch. Once they have their notes, they can write down the stories together, helping each other as needed. Give whole-class or individual feedback.

Comic-Book Stories

Students who are having difficulties finding the words to sequence stories might enjoy an activity based on the comic-book format, especially since graphic stories are probably already familiar to them. Use this activity after giving a reading lesson with a story that has a strong yet simple plot structure; in this way, students’ knowledge of how to choose plot points is activated. Inform them that they will create their own story, but, instead of writing, they will draw the main actions in comic-book format. This is essentially prewriting, so don’t focus too heavily on the artwork. Instead, get the students to identify the main actions through illustration. Once they have their comics, or the rough drafts, they can then move to writing stories in traditional formats.

Reporter Activity

Use narrative writing as a chance to encourage shy students to get to know one another by asking them to be journalists and conduct interviews. This bolsters their speaking and listening skills in addition to teaching them about writing. To get started, preteach asking questions and question words. Next, ask students to think about a meaningful personal event, giving a prompt, if necessary; then, put the students into pairs. The students take turns as the reporter, asking questions to learn all about their partner's story. Once they have the information, they can write the stories down. Consider extending the activity and providing feedback by creating a class booklet or newspaper with the written works.

Conclusion

In conclusion the Peer review technique has been proven to improve students’ writing ability. Therefore, it is proposed that lecturers in English should use the Peer Review Technique (PRT) as one option for teaching writing to stimulate students‟ interest and critical thinking in writing. The students should then gain more confidence in exploring their abilities and ideas in writing which can improve their writing skills and the quality of their writing. It is also suggested that other researchers could carry out more in-depth studies on the application of PRT for other types of texts and that they may also use the information from this research as a useful input in teaching learning processes especially for teaching writing.

Teaching students to produce a successful written text is a complex task which requires simultaneous control over a number of language systems as well as an ability to factor in considerations of the ways the discourse must be shaped for a particular audience and a particular purpose. Teaching students to become successful writers is no less a complex task. But it can be a tremendously rewarding one as well.

In this research work we have presented some of the issues involved in applying writing activities in teaching the writing class. As the ability to write well in English language is no doubt even more difficult to achieve than the ability to read, speak, or understand the language, it is not surprising that many students take several years to achieve even a modicum of success. What must be emphasized to teachers in training is the importance of designing activities and shaping classes with a clear understanding of how the acquisition of written skills can be fostered. Our real goal is to gradually wean our students away from us, providing them with strategies and tools for their continued growth as writers and for the successful fulfillment of future writing tasks they might face once they have completed their last writing course with us. Earlier hopes to find the best method “were based on the faulty assumptions that there was a best method and one just had to find it, that teaching writing was a matter of prescribing a logically ordered set of written tasks and exercises, and that good writing conformed to a predetermined and ideal model”. There can be no “best” method when students' learning styles are so different; our hope now is rather to find methodologies which empower students rather than restrict them, and to create courses which arise from principled decisions derived from thorough research investigations.

The growth of composition studies as a discipline with its own independent body of research (apart from, say, literary studies or linguistic studies) has enormously influenced the formal training of English. For EFL teachers to be able to provide courses which assist their students in learning to produce academic prose, their training should be no less than other skills.

It has been the major aim of our research work to emphasize the fact that teaching writing skills is particularly important at the initial stage of language learning since it helps students establish a good basis in learning other skills such as reading, speaking and listening. We worked out a series of activities for improving students’ writing skills and combined them with the tasks given in the textbooks. When we analyzed the textbook activities, we found that most of them teach writing in phrases or sentences. The activities which we applied teach students mostly creative writing and make them be more motivated in writing.

We tried to vary writing tasks, make them more creative and we came to a conclusion that students love writing because of interesting tasks. We both benefit : students because learning to write is enjoyable for them , teachers benefit because they feel the need to improvise , to make writing more attractive to students and think of and look for more creative tasks. In order to be able to select and use appropriate procedures and materials, as well as assess their learners’ needs and progress, teachers need to be clear regarding the desirable outcomes of a writing programme and the processes involved in good writing.

In order to help EFL learners become more effective writers, we need to make a crucial distinction between language accuracy and writing skills. That is, a learner may be able to write sentences which are satisfactory for his/her level in terms of grammar, syntax and vocabulary and still be unable to produce an effective text. Of course, in most cases learners will have problems in both areas (language and writing skills). Therefore, it is crucial for us to be able to look beneath the layer of language problems to discover writing problems. This leads us to another important distinction, the one between grammar/vocabulary development and writing skills development. We need to remember that language input/practice alone cannot result in the development of writing skills. Special activities in writing lessons are necessary, in which learners are guided to become aware of all the elements of good writing, supported with information and examples, provided with opportunities for practice, and given focused feedback on their performance. We can also plan lessons which integrate work on language with work on writing skills. In such cases, it is important for us to be clear about the aims/focus of different stages in the lesson. In order to be able to select and use appropriate procedures and materials, as well as assess their learners’ needs and progress, teachers need to be clear regarding the desirable outcomes of a writing programme and the processes involved in good writing.

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Резюме

Обьем дипломной работы -76 страниц. Количество приложений - 3 Объектом исследования.- методика преподавания иностранных языков. Цель работы - разработка научно обоснованных и экспериментально проверенных теоретических основ методики обучения написание эссе в обучении английскому языку. Методика проведения работы – обзор и анализ методической литературы по исследуемой теме, нормативных документов Республики Казахстан наблюдение: беседа. Степень новизны – научно обоснован использования современных методы написание эссе в процессе обучения иностранному языку. Рекомендации по внедрению научно - исследовательской работы: практическая часть дипломной работы была апробирована во время преддипломной практики в школе –лицей №7 имени К. Спатаева а также в ходе выступления с научным докладом на международной научно- практической конференции - инновационный потенциал науки и образования Казахстана в новой глобальной реальности. Практическая значимость полученных результатов или значимость работы: разработан пример плана урока с применением кооперативный метода, а также практические рекомендации по использованию эссе с целью повышения эффективности процесса преподавания и изучения английского языка в школе

Түйін

Диплом жұмысының көлемі - 76 бет. Қосымшалар саны-3. Зерттеу нысаны -ағылшын тілін оқыту әдістемесі Зерттеудің мақсаты шет тілі сабағын оқыту барысында эссе жазудың әдісін талдау. Зерттеу жұмысында пайдаланылған әдістер - зерттеу тақырыбы бойынша әдістемелік әдебиеттерге, Қазақстан Республикасының нормативттік құжаттарына шолу жасап, сараптау, талқылау, әңгімелесу Зерттеу жұмысының жаңалығы - ағылшын тілін оқыту үрдісінде эссе жазудың әдісі ғылыми тұрғыда негізделді. Ғылыми зерттеу жұмысына ендіру ұсыныстары диплом жұмысының практикалық бөлімі №7 Қ. Спатаев атындағы мектеп лицейінде дипломалды іс тәжірбие барысында сыналды және Әуезов оқулары жаңа жаһандық ахуалдағы Қазақстанның білім және ғылымдағы инновациялық әлеуеті атты халықаралық конференциясында баяндама ретінде сыналды. Зерттеу тұжырымдарының практикалық құндылығы- Эссе жазудың үлгісі жасалды, сондай ақ мектепте ағылшын тілін оқыту үрдісінің сапасын арттыру мақсатында оны пайдалану бойынша нұсқаулықтар дайындалды.