Earlier approaches to the teaching
of writing have misinterpreted the nature of this skill. The fact
that traditional approaches to the teaching of writing have focus
on ¨problematic aspects¨ of the writing situation such as
the teaching of grammar or sentence structure, have been
repeatedly stated. See Nunan, (1991); Richards, (1990); Byrne,
(1988), among others.
- The Structuralist
Methods
These methods share a conception
of how to learn a foreign language as a process of acquiring its
structures and patterns through habit formation. The theory of
language underlying these methods is structural linguistics, and
even though there are differences between British and American
structuralism, both saw language as a ¨system of structurally
related elements for the encoding of meaning, the elements being
phonemes, morphemes, words, structures and sentence
types¨.
(Richards and Rodgers, 1988; cited
in Cerezal Sierra, 1997).
Both schools lean their theory of
learning upon behaviorist habit-forming conceptions. Behaviorism,
an American school of psychology represented by Skinner, had
an antimentalist and empirical approach to aspects of social life
like structuralism concerning language. Behavior can be
conditioned by three elements: stimulus -which elicits a
behavior-, a consequent response, and the final
reinforcement.
Two main approaches are
representative of structuralism:
1- The oral approach: it has its
origin in the British applied linguistics of the 1920´s and
1930´s, represented by Palmer and Hornby. It was dominant
from the 1930´s to the 1960´s. In the 1960´s,
this approach was called the Situational Approach close to a
bigger emphasis on the representation and practice of language
situationally. In relation to the writing skill, this approach
has the following characteristics:
- Its syllabus is organized
structurally in sentence patterns, gradually
sequenced. - Correct grammar and spelling
are considered crucial, so students must avoid
errors. - The written language comes
after the oral language.
- The audio-lingual method: this
method corresponds with The USA structuralist tradition of FLT,
which became the dominant orthodoxy after World War II. Its
origin can be traced back to Bloomfield, who set up the bases
of structuralist linguistics segmenting and classifying
utterances into their phonological and grammatical
constituents. Other followers were Fries, Brooks, Rivers and
Lado.
The characteristics and
assumptions reflected by this approach gave primary emphasis to
an oral approach to FLT and focus on an accurate speech, but
grammatical explanations did not have an important role. Teaching
units are organized following these three methodological
points:
Nothing will be spoken before it
has been heard.
Nothing will be read before it has
been spoken.
Nothing will be written before it
has been read.
In the 1960´s, the
structuralist methods were still widespread, but those years saw
as well the beginning of criticism from different sides. First,
their ideas about language and learning theories were questioned;
secondly, teachers did not fill their expectations, and finally;
students had many difficulties to communicate inside the
classroom and sometimes found the learning experience boring and
discouraging.
In relation to writing, these
methods mislead the teaching of written communication by
excessive emphasis on grammatical elements of secondary
importance, and neglecting generalizations. Slight treatment is
given to syntactic relations; it does not provide criteria for
error correction. Accent was also placed on formal criteria at
the expense of situational and semantic aspects; structures were
seen as an end in itself while neglecting their application in
real life communication, which left teachers and learners without
a creative approach towards the language study.
Two key writing teaching
approaches are representative of the influence of structuralist
methods on this linguistic skill, the following analysis appears
in Byrne, (op. cit.):
- An accuracy oriented approach,
which stresses the importance of writer’s control, in
order to eliminate mistakes. - A text- oriented approach,
which stresses the importance of the paragraph as the basic
unit of written expression, and mainly concerned with teaching
the students how to construct and organize
paragraphs.
- The Communicative Approach or
Communicative Language Teaching
This approach is usually called
communicative though other labels – particularly
functional or notional at its early stages- have also been
used as synonyms. (Cerezal Sierra, op. cit.). The term
communicative denotes a marked concern with semantic
aspects of language (Wilkins, 1978; cited in Cerezal Sierra, op.
cit.)
The crisis of
structuralist methods had began with Chomsky’s criticisms
about the incapability of structuralism to take into account the
fundamental characteristics of language. The Situational method
was criticized by the British applied linguistics because it
lacked the functional and communicative potential of language.
Applied linguists made use of the British functional linguistics
(Firth, Halliday…), American socio-linguistics (Hymes,
Gumperz, and Labov), as well as Philosophy (Austin and
Searle).
The criticism was also growing
among the FLT profession about the production of structurally
competent but communicatively incompetent
students, unable to transfer outside the classroom the amount of
classroom work on repetitive habit-forming exercises.
Dissatisfaction showed as well from the new educational realities
created by the development of the European
Union.
The Council of Europe decided to
face the new reality and asked some experts to study the needs of
European students. This work culminated in the document called
Threshold Level of the Council of Europe, which includes list of
situations, topics, general and specific notions and adequate
language forms, as well as some methodological implications. This
document, together with the contribution of some applied
linguists (among them Widdowson, Brumfit, Johnson, Trim,
Richterich and Chancerel), textbook writers, educationalists,
etc, led to the consideration of the new approach known as
communicative (Cerezal Sierra, op. cit.)
However, this process does not
mean a coherent community based on the Communicative approach, as
there is no single text over any single model. The understanding
of the approach varies from some authors to others, and there are
several different models for syllabus design (see Richards and
Rodgers, 1986)
Type
References
1- Structures + functions Wilkins,
(1976)
2- Functional spiral around a
structural core Brumfit, (1980)
3- Functional Jupp and Hodlin,
(1975)
4- Notional Wilkins,
(1976)
5- Interactional Widdowson,
(1979)
6- Task- based Prabhu,
(1983)
7- Learner generated Candlin,
(1976)
The Communicative Approach brings
about some changes and innovations coming mainly from applied
linguistics. Language is seen as a social phenomenon and as a
means of communication and interaction between members of a
community. The goal of FLT is to develop students´
communicative competence (Hymes, 1972).
The impact of the communicative
approach to language teaching has been strong in spite of the
fact that it is not a totally defined method and has been subject
to several interpretations. See the following summary from
McDonough and Shaw, 1993, cited in Cerezal Sierra (op.
cit.):
- Increasing concern with the
meaning potential of language. - The relationship between
language form and function is of a rather complex
character. - The concept of communication
goes beyond the sentence to texts
conversations. - Appropriacy of language use is
considered alongside accuracy, which has implications for error
correction, materials and activities. - It provides realistic and
motivating language practice. - The concept communicative is
applied to the four language skills. - It can use learners´
knowledge and experience with their mother
tongue - It has introduced a better
level of language reflection and awareness in its later
times.
In relation to writing, some
approaches have emerged as result of those
developments:
-A fluency-oriented approach,
which encourages students to write as much and as quickly as
possible without worrying about mistakes.
– A purpose-oriented approach,
which considers the reasons for writing, and the audience for
whom to write. It is concerned with the students learning when
they write something, to whom, under what
circumstances.
The Communicative Approach to
writing entangles with the purpose-oriented approach, since the
former demands teaching why they should write something,
to whom, under what circumstances, what the
purpose could be, and what consequences could result from the
writing. All these elements refer to providing a context for
writing, with task-oriented activities that involve the exchange
of information and the free use of the language without undue
concern for mistakes. (Byrne, op.cit.)
However, on the other hand, it is
evident that there are still some unresolved problems with the
CA:
- Too much emphasis has been
given – particularly in its early stages- to speaking and
listening, to the detriment of reading and
writing. - There has been a lack of
reflection on language aspects. - Critics have pointed out that
it is not appropriate to foreign language situations, so
advocates more emphasis to language
awareness. - It is not clear the criteria
for selecting and grading the chosen functions and grammatical
exponents to be taught. - Again, not all the teachers
whose mother tongue is not English are confident enough to work
with this approach. - In fact, some of the proposals
imply a new selection of language through functions, as the
structuralists did with structures. - Its advocacy of a meaningful
use of the language is not always clear, or the activities or
tasks to be undertaken are not always really
meaningful.
(Cerezal Sierra,
op.cit.)
Other criticisms came from
teachers and researchers of FLT.
- Lack of input ( nothing for
beginners) - Lack of support for second
language acquisition. - Communicative language teaching
trivializes the students´ attempts for learning
language. - Lack of authenticity of
discourse - One generalized type of
discourse ( Initiation- Response/ Initiation- Response-
Evaluation)
(Pat Currie,
1999)
The structuralist methods, and the
earlier models of the CA are also called propositional or
product.
Their ways of teaching and
learning are through formal and systematic statements (expressed
as structures, rules and functions…) and they have had an
outstanding influence on the teaching of writing. Besides, their
scope of influence has shifted from excessive care for language
accuracy to fostering writing fluency without paying much
attention to mistakes.
1.2- Towards a Didactics of Learning
Writing
1.2.1- The procedural
Approaches
The last decade brought about a
new perspective in the views of writing. As Richards, (op. cit.)
remarks ¨If our goal I teaching writing is to develop fluent
writers, it is necessary to examine how fluent writers compose
and to reexamine our writing methods logically in the light of
this information.
This position is theoretically
congruent with the new paradigm in FLT: the procedural approaches
(task-based and process approaches) which represent important
innovations in theory, research and classroom experience, and
which have introduced sound changes in FLT ( Cerezal Sierra,
op.cit.).
These innovations mean a change of
emphasis from the subject to be learned to the learning process
and imply interesting consequences of negotiation, evaluation and
retrospective planning. The following list of contrasts between
product and process approaches of FLT is taken from Gray, (1990,
(cited in Cerezal Sierra, op. cit).
What is to be learned? How is to
be learned?
– Subject emphasis Process
emphasis
– External to the learner Internal
of the learner
– Determined by authority
Negotiated between learner and teacher
– Teacher as decision- maker
Learners and teachers as decision makers
Content=what the subject is to the
expert Content = what the subject is to the
learner
Objectives defined in advance
Objectives described afterwards
Assessment by achievement or
mastery Achievement in relation to learner’s
criteria
of success
– Doing things to the learner
Doing things for or with the learner
Process models focus on three
types of processes: communicating, learning and the classroom
social activity. The ways things are done in the classroom are
the means through which communicating and learning can be
achieved. The Process Model is a plan for
classroom work, which provides:
- The major decisions that
teachers and learners need to make jointly in an on-going and
negotiated way. - A bank of classroom activities
in a not sequenced way.
The roots of Process Approaches
are found in educational thought and practice coming from
humanistic approaches (Dewey, 1974; Holt, 1976; Freire, 1970),
the importance given to learning in groups, learner
interpretation of a new knowledge, as well as arguments against
the need to plan a syllabus of content. (Cerezal Sierra, op.
cit.)
This approach has had a
considerable influence on the teaching and learning of writing.
It has implied transformations in the role teachers and learners
have had traditionally and consequently in the types of
instructional activities carried out. There is a general
recognition of a minimal three-stage process (Richards, op.cit.;
Murray, 1980 cited in Richards, op. cit.; Nunan, op.cit.; Raimes,
1987; Terroux and Woods, 1991; Hedge, 1988; Conrad,
1983…)
Collaborative writing, and highly
interactive patterns are proper of this approach, which
concentrates more at the level of discourse, and teachers are
much more interested in the process writers go through in
composing a text. The interaction patterns cover a wide range of
types: expert –novice, novice- novice, writer-reader,
writer-writer, reader-reader, and teachers as fellow writers away
from judge and critic.
The instructional activities are
numerous and varied: rehearsing activities, journals,
brainstorming, free associations, clustering and word mapping,
quick writing, strategic questioning, elaboration exercises,
group drafting, redrafting, getting feedback, using check lists,
etc.
With the emergence of the process
approach to teaching and learning writing, a growing interest on
the different kinds of strategies and cognitive processes and
activities has been the focus research on writing. Thus,
contemporary trends of teaching and learning foreign languages,
and writing specifically, have moved towards a didactic of
learning, centering on how learners learn aside from the earlier
views, which concentrated more on the process of teaching and the
up coming product. These theoretical foundations are also
supported by the great influence the emerging Theory of Learning
Strategies is having on educational research and FLT
specifically. The works done by researchers such as Raimes,
(1995); Lapp, (1984) and Zamel, (1987), both cited in Richards,
(op. cit.) mean important prompts in discovering how experienced
writers compose their texts, what behaviors and strategies they
choose and which elements take part in the process of writing. As
a result, a more logical and composite picture of the process of
writing is coming through.
1.2.2- A Theoretical Model of
Writing
A graphic representation of the
process of writing can be visualized in the following
diagram:
This theoretical model of writing
intends to represent the components of the writing
process
and their
relationships.
The process of writing is composed
by three main stages: pre- writing, writing and post-writing,
within each of them various phases take place.
In the pre-writing stage, occur
the generation, focusing and structuring of ideas, which refer to
establishing the purpose of writing, defining the audience and
the form the text will have. The drafting phase refers to the
composition of the text, i.e. putting ideas into paragraphs
coherently. The post- writing stage implies revision, evaluating
critically what has been written, considering content, form and
other parameters; and rewriting, which is a natural part of the
writing process as a whole, successive reconstructed drafts are
done till the desired standards are met.
The arrows that establish the
relationships among the stages and within each stage show the
recursive nature of the process.
The three stages are lead by the
rhetorical problem – that is the interpretation the
writer does of the task or instruction to be performed-;
the declarative knowledge the writer has- previous
background knowledge that can be verbalized-; the procedural
knowledge –
linked to knowledge about how to
act and execute tasks-, and the last leading component is the
audience, because it is important that the writer anticipates
the possible reactions, backgrounds, etc. of those who will be
reading and creating meaning out of what is produced (Richard-
Amato, 1996). A sense of audience creates a context for writing
without which it is impossible to produce a genuine communicative
product.
At the bottom of the diagram, the
external and internal factors that are not to be overruled are
presented. The inclusion of these factors intends to precise that
writing is not only determined by the task in itself, the demands
imposed by the declarative and procedural knowledge, but also by
the action of these factors that is not to be
neglected.
All of these factors intervene to
a greater or lesser degree in the whole process. Their influence
varies from individual to individual, but the teacher should not
overlook their relevance, being more or less important, if he or
she wants to elicit a harmonic writing process and a
corresponding product.
1.2.3- Assumptions about
Learning
Our views on knowing how people
learn a foreign language and particularly, how learners learn to
write are supported in the following six research-based
assumptions about learning (Jones et al, 1987 c.f.Takala,
1996)
- Learning is goal oriented.
Expert learners have two major goals during the learning
process: to understand the meaning of the task and to regulate
their own learning. In other words, learners have either
declarative knowledge, or content goals, and procedural
knowledge, or strategic goals for a learning
task. - In learning, new information is
linked to prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is stored in memory
in the form of knowledge frameworks or schemata, and new
information is understood and stored by calling up the
appropriate schema and integrating the new information with it.
Knowing how and when to access prior
knowledge is a characteristic of effective
learners. - Learning requires knowledge
organization. Knowledge is organized in recognizable frameworks
such as story grammar, problem/solutions structures,
comparison/contrast patterns, and description sequences, among
others. Skilled learners recognize these organizational
structures and use them to assist learning and
recall. - Learning is strategic. Good
learners are aware of the learning processes and of themselves
as learners, and seek to control their own learning through the
use of appropriate learning strategies. Strategies can be
taught but many do not transfer ton new tasks. Although each
content area may require a particular set of strategies and
skills, a number of core skills underlies all subject areas.
Examples of these core skills are using prior knowledge, making
a representation of the information, self-monitoring, and
summarizing. - Learning occurs in recursive
phases. All types of learning are initiated with a planning
phase, followed by an on-line processing, and editing with
consolidation and extension of the new information. In the
planning phase, the problem is identified, goals are set, and
prior knowledge is activated. During on-line processing new
information is integrated, assimilated, and used to clarify or
modify existing ideas. During consolidation and extension, the
learner summarizes and organizes the new information, assesses
achievement of the goal established in the first phase, and
extends learning to applying to new situations. During each
phase, the learner may return to a previous phase to rework one
or more of its aspects. - Learning is influenced by
development. Differences between older and younger students and
between more or less proficient learners are due in large part
to differences in prior knowledge and learning strategy used.
These differences may be present when children begin school or
may develop over time, but in either case, they tend to persist
unless intervention is undertaken.
(Jones, Ogle and Carr, 1987 c.f.
Takala, 1996)
For work on learning strategies in
language learning, O’Malley and Chamot, (1990) c.f. Takala,
(1996), consider it important that cognitive theory makes the
following assertions:
- Learning is an active and
dynamic process, in which individuals make use of a variety of
information and strategic modes of
processing. - Language is a complex cognitive
skill that has properties in common with other complex skills
in terms of how information is stored and
learned. - Learning a language entails
stage wise progression from initial awareness and active
manipulation of information and learning processes to full
automaticity in language use; and - Learning strategies parallel
theoretically derived cognitive processes and have the
potential to influence learning outcomes in a positive
manner.
Naiman, Frohlich, Stern and
Todesco (1978) identified the following five strategies in their
seminal study on good language learners (GLLs.). The five major
strategies describe the overall approach to language learning
that appears to be essential to successful language acquisition.
The minor strategies subsumed under the major ones were not
considered necessarily applicable to all successful language
learners. The five strategies are:
Strategy 1: Active task
approach
Good language learners (GLLs.)
actively improve themselves in the language-learning
task:
- By responding positively adding
to given learning opportunities or by identifying and seeking
preferred learning environments and exploiting
them. - By adding related language
learning activities to the regular program and/or identifying
their efforts. - By engaging in a number of
practice activities. - By identifying individual
problems connected with their language learning and actively
dealing with them. - By changing the usual purpose
of an activity in order to focus on L2
learning.
Strategy 2: Realization of
language as a system
GLLs. Develop or exploit an
awareness of language as a system. In dealing with language as a
system GLLs:
- Refer back to their native
language(s) judiciously (translate into L1) and make effective
cross-lingual comparisons at different stages of language
learning. - Analyze the target language and
make inferences about it; they guess by using
clues. - Develop learning techniques,
which make use of the fact that language is a
system.
Strategy 3: Realization of
language as means of communication and
interaction
GLLs. Develop and exploit an
awareness of language as a means of communication (i.e.conveying
and receiving messages) and interaction (i.e. behaving in a
culturally appropriate manner).
- In the earlier stages of
language learning GLLs. May emphasize fluency over accuracy.
They may concentrate on speech flow rather than error- free
production. - GLLs. seek out situations in
which they can communicate with members of the target language
and/or increase their communicative skills in the
language. - GLLs. display critical
sensitivity to language use, for example, to be attempting to
find out socio-cultural meanings (even before first contact
with native speakers).
Strategy 4: Management of
affective demands
GLLs. realize initially or with
time that they must cope with the affective demands made upon
them by language learning and succeed in doing
so.
Strategy 5: Monitoring of
L2 performance
GLLs. constantly revise their L2
systems. They monitor the
language they are acquiring by testing their inferences
(guesses); by looking for needed adjustments as they think
corrections are needed.
C. F Takala, (op.
cit.)
Unfortunately, the majority of the
learners do not inherently share the cognitive, strategy-
related, and personality characteristics of GLLs. (Brown, op.
cit.). They are not aware of the power of language learning
strategies for facilitating their learning, many of them know
little about learning of a language as a process. Nonetheless,
the teacher may change this situation by developing the
learners’ awareness and the use of learning strategies by
offering conscious and explicit training of writing learning
strategies.
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Quarterly.
(1999)
Autoras:
Nery Karen García
Pando
Lic. en Educación
Especialidad Lengua Inglesa, 1999
Yinmia Reyes
Blanco
Lic. en Educación
Especialidad Lengua Inglesa, 1999
Key Words: writing strategies,
learning strategies, writing, skill, writing skill, strategic
training,