Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

particular purpose we have in mind. Sometimes this is a
matter of layout, as in writing a business letter, or of
organisation, as in minutes of a meeting, but sometimes it is a
much more subtle process of recognising the level of
formality of certain combinations of utterance, or of
appreciating what would sound bizarre or inappropriate—
for any reason whatsoever—to a native speaker. Clearly it is
not possible to teach explicitly everything a writer needs to
know about English, but fortunately for teachers the learning
of language takes place to a great extent unconsciously. A
successful writing course must select the conventions and
styles which are most likely to be useful to the students, but a
great deal of the sensitivity which the students need in the use
of language will develop unconsciously from spin-off from
their reading and talking in the rest of the English course, so
writing cannot be seen as something completely separated
from the other activities.
If we define the main aims of the writing course as
developing appropriate ranges of style coherently and easily
used, teachers may well feel that the traditional concerns of
spelling and basic grammatical errors are being neglected. In
fact, while these are of some significance, and should be
corrected by students as they learn to write good English,
correction of these alone will not ensure that satisfactory
English writing results. We would expect a good writing
course to help students to correct their mistakes, but natural
writing does not result primarily from exercises in avoiding
mistakes, so we need to fit help with correction into a
framework of more positive development of writing skills.

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Writing
121
A basic methodology for written work
In writing, as in other aspects of language teaching, the
questions for the teacher to ask himself are: Is the task
appropriate for the needs of the students? Is the task within
the reach of the students? Is it only just within their reach, so
that they will be really challenged as they try to complete it?
And will they find it enjoyable? In this section ways of
dealing with the answers to the second and third questions
will be explored. If the teacher is sympathetic and
enthusiastic, and the first three questions can be answered
with ‘Yes’, the last should follow.
In dealing with written work, there are a number of ways
in which the teacher can bring the task to the level of his
class. Basically, this means making the exact solutions to the
writing problem more and more explicit the lower down the
educational system we go. The teacher can grade the task in
the following ways:
1 He can limit the length of the written material to be
produced.
2 He can increase the amount of class preparation for the
task.
3 He can provide guidance on the final form of the written
work, for example with picture prompts, or word prompts,
or memory prompts as a result of the oral preparation.
4 He can encourage students to collaborate in the actual
process of writing.
5 He can allow cross-checking between the draft stage and
the writing of the final product.
6 He can limit the complexity of the writing task itself.
7 He can demand that the task be completed either slowly or
quickly.
Any combination of these methods can be used to bring the
task to the level of the class.
These strategies provide the teacher with ways of
organising his work in the class, but what should be the basis
for the development? It is in fact possible to construct a very
detailed specification of stages in composition work, which
advances from what is really only a copying exercise to
become gradually freer and freer until advanced writing of a

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Writing
122
situationalised or free kind has been developed. To illustrate
this principle, consider the gradual advance in the following
three stages: