Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing

¶ … Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing by ISP Nation (2009), the author addresses various approaches that teachers can use to help learners improve their writing. The chapter opens by explicating the principles involved in teaching writing. These are helpful because they can be used in evaluating teaching and learning activities in order to choose the most appropriate ones for the particular learning situation.

Meaning-focused input for example focuses on experience and knowledge that learners bring to their writing, while the meaning-focused output principle indicates that learners should do as much as possible writing, and as many as possible different types of writing. The third and fourth principles, language-focused learning and fluency development, focus on developing the skill of writing itself. Learners are to be provided with writing exercises that builds upon their existing knowledge and skill set, while also improving these to a higher level than the existing one.

In order to accomplish these principles, the author suggests four writing task types that the teacher can apply to the classroom situation to provide students with a progressive difficulty level. These include experience tasks, shared tasks, guided tasks and independent tasks.

Experience tasks build upon the existing knowledge that students have of the writing topic. The teacher ensures that students have an oral command of the topic, after which they are required to put it in writing. Shared tasks involve dividing the learners into groups of three or four. Each group is required to produce a single collaborative piece of writing. The principle behind this is that students help to bridge the gap between their existing and desired level of writing skill. By collaborating, the students provide a higher quality of work than they can do on their own. Guided tasks involve providing students with guiding stimuli in order to produce writing on a specific topic, while independent tasks are most appropriate for fairly advanced learners. Independent tasks require learners to produce their own writing, while being allowed to ask for help if this is needed.

The chapter goes on to explicate each writing task by means of examples and further specific guidance for teachers. It is also suggested that the tasks do not need to be applied in isolation, but that they can also be used in combination for greater effectiveness. Examples are given of experience and guided tasks that can be done in groups. In this regard, the author points out that group work has advantages for both teachers, learners, and the learning process itself. Teachers' supervision and grading workloads are reduced, while learners view each other as a learning resource in addition to the teacher.

The chapter concludes by a short section that guides teachers' decision-making when implementing the four writing task types. It is suggested that teachers use a critical approach to determine which tasks would be most appropriate.

I found the chapter extremely interesting, as teaching writing to ESL/EFL students is always a challenging endeavor for both the learners and those trying to teach them. What I find enlightening is the clear explanation of the writing tasks being described. I believe that the guided writing exercises have specific application possibilities to my teaching situation. When a learner is presented with examples of the type and level of writing required, it is much easier to guide the learner towards independent writing.