Teaching Writing - Week 8 - Materials for Developing Writing Skills

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 8 of the course Teaching Writing for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IIC 2023. In this class we will .consider the kinds of materials that can be developed or adapted for the purposes of writing instruction. We will also review your sixth creation you made for this week and preview your next creation task.

Today's Goals:

• Demonstrate the features of your handwriting / spelling task.
• Explore issues in the area of materials development for writing instruction.
• Apply textbook adaptation strategies for the purposes of writing instruction.

Guiding Questions:

• How can I develop students' understanding of handwriting, spelling, and basic punctuation?
• What roles can instructional materials play in the development of L2 writing ability?
• How can I adapt textbook materials to provide better writing opportunities for students?

Task 1: Activity Type Demo -Handwriting / Spelling Task

Nearly every week of this course you will submit a unit writing activity creation in order to build a portfolio of writing activity types. 

• Characteristics: What are the features of handwriting / spelling tasks?
• Example: What activity did you create?
• Strengths: In what ways are handwriting / spelling tasks potentially beneficial?
• Challenges: What potential limitations or challenges are associated with them?

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Project Check-in

Remember, you should already be thinking about your final Learner Needs and Context Analysis project. A few weeks back we talked about some strategies to gather useful information about your students' writing needs and preferences. Have you had the chance to think about the design of your data collection instruments?

• Your Course Project: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Reading Response - Materials for Developing Writing Skills

Let's take a moment to discuss these questions related to your assigned reading for this week.

• Initial Thoughts: What role do materials play in what you do as a teacher? How important is it for teachers to develop a critical stance toward the materials they are required to use as well as complimentary materials they select or develop themselves? 

• Quote: “Together with teaching methodologies, materials represent the interface between teaching and learning, the point at which needs, objectives and syllabuses are made tangible for both teachers and students. They provide most of the input and language exposure that learners receive in the classroom and are indispensable to how teachers stimulate, model, and support writing (Hyland, 2013, p. 391).”

• Functions of Materials: Brian Tomlinson, one of ELT's most cited experts on the area of materials development has in several publications referred to four broad roles that language learning materials can play. In this chapter, Hyland lists four specific roles for writing instruction materials. Click the group link below.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE
• Additional Information: CLICK HERE

• Sources of Materials: According to the author, one potential source of materials for writing instruction are authentic materials, ones not created for the purpose of language teaching. In your experience, what are some of the challenges and opportunities when working with authentic matierals? What strategies can help mitigate the challenges?

• Textbooks, whether they are the primary materials source used on a course or simply a compliment, are perhaps the dominant source of materials in all language teaching contexts. In your experience, in what ways do coursebooks approach the skill of writing? What has your experience been like when relying on textbook materials to have students perform a writing task?

• Textbook Exploration: CLICK HERE to access a PDF with a sample of explicit writing tasks found in four popular commercial textbooks. Although the particular version of some of these series may have an outdated layout, the content and tasks represents the typical features of most commerical English textbooks today. Skim through the pages and discuss the following questions:

• What do the tasks require students to do?

• How are the instructions given?

• What input, if any, is given to students before they write?

• Can you use any of Hyland's functions to describe the materials you see?

• Models, Language Scaffolding, Reference, Stimulus

• What do you like/dislike about the way the task is presented? What would you change?

• Developing Materials: The author provides two frameworks for the task of writing materials adaptation or development. Let's take a look at the Hutchison and Waters model more carefully.

Click to View Full Sized Image.

• "The processes of creating new materials and modifying existing ones are very similar, and here Hutchison and Waters (1987) framework for materials design is a useful guide for teachers. This comprises four key elements: input, content, langauge and a task..."

• "This model reflects the instructional roles of materials for writing ... and emphasizes the integration of key elements in materials design. It also reflects the distinction originally made by Breen, Candlin, and Waters (1979) between content materials as sources of information and data and process materials that act as frameworks within which learners can use their communicative abilities. Materials lead to a task, and the resources of language and content that students need to successfully complete this task are supplied by the input. Input is crucial as students cannot learn to communicate effectively in writing if they are simply given a topic and asked to write. While they need to have something to write about, they also need to know how to generate and draft ideas, and to have sufficient language and genre knowledge to perform the task. The materials students are given must guide them towards this, and as a result materials development, whether this means creating new materials or adapting existing resources, is likely to begin by noticing the absence of one or more of these elements (p. 401-402)."

• Final Quotes: Let's consider these final quotes which summarize the main ideas from the chapter.

• “Teaching is largely a process of transforming content knowledge into pedagogically effective forms, and this is most in evidence when teachers are considering both their learners and their profession in modifying and creating materials.”

• “The central idea in this chapter is that teaching writing skills can never simply involve giving students a topic and asking them to write about it. Materials are a key element of what it means to teach writing and their choice and design must always be sensitive to local conditions and to the professional expertise of teachers (p. 403-404)."

Task 4: Textbook Adaptation

Let's finish today's class by previewing your seventh creation task. 

• Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References: 

Hyland, K. (2013). Materials for Developing Writing Skills. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.) Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury.