Peculiarities of teaching writing at the senior stage

At the senior stage, writing is used as a vehicle for better acquisition of lexical-grammatical input. Written tasks at this stage are usually connected with copying out. It might be simple copying and modified simple copying. Simple copying words or sentences from the board can be very mechanical and thus boring. One way to make copying more challenging is to use a technique called delayed copying. The teacher writes a word on the board or shows it on a flashcard, and the students read it; then the teacher erases the word and the students write it down. In this way, students have to think what they are writing. They have to think of the word as a whole, not just a series of letters.

Another way to make copying more interesting is by including a simple task for the students to do. E.g.: We can ask students to match words together, to match with pictures, to put words in the correct order, etc. This makes sure that students think about what they are copying and understand what the words mean. It also gives a reason for writing the words. There are some examples of modified simple copying activities:

1. Match the questions with the answers, then write them out.

Questions	Answers
What’s the time?	Yes, I love them.
Do you like oranges?	At half past seven.
When do you get up?	No, I go by bus.
Do you walk to school?	It’s two o’clock.

1. Copy out the true sentences only.

This man is wearing a hat.

He is carrying a stick.

He is running.

He is walking.

He is smiling.

3. Some of these are farm animals, others are wild animals. Write them in two lists.

	Farm animals	Wild animals
tiger horse cat goat rooster lion buffalo bear chicken sheep camel ass cow dog hen goose swan	Horse	lion

After students are able to write words and sentences in English, writing activities will be mainly concerned with expressing meaning and with sentence structure. Such tasks are not numerous at the senior stage. What is important here is the material of writing itself should be communicatively meaningful. Besides, writing is integrated in oral speech, as well as in reading and understanding. Thus, one cannot overestimate the value of the communicative tasks. The following tasks aimed at thoughtful reading combined with writing may serve a good example:

· Read the text and say what you have come to know. Write down the main sentences of the text.

· Read the text and say what you have learned. Write the plan of what you are going to speak about.

· Read the story and write down its main idea. Explain it in you own words.

At the senior stage, students should use writing while preparing their home reading assignments. For instance:

· Copy out facts proving friendly relations between the main characters.

· Write down sentences explaining why the main hero has become King.

· Write down sentences characterizing the main character as a brave person.

· Write a paragraph of 20 sentences explaining why Rose was fond of the theatre.

· Write your own version of the end of the story. Start with words ‘since my early childhood I have been wondering how on Earth people could doubt…’

· Copy out sentences proving the friends’ caring for each other. Write down what, in your opinion, unites them in their struggle against…

At the senior stage, students should be taught writing essays and annotations. This sub-skill is needed for working out the ability of compressing information. Texts of publicistic and popular-scientific style, of social and political origin may be very useful in this respect.

An essay is understood as a text comprising all main information of the original. It is composed as the result of the semantic interpretation of the original. Each element of an essay bears the maximum of its semantic load, which is achieved through the choice of words. The words chosen should be able to generalize the contents of sentences. Another important factor is the use of economical syntactic devices. Statements and enumeration of major thematic lines of the original text are characteristic of essays. There is no argumentation, proofs or discussion in the formulated sentences of an essay. It is a new text built up in accordance with the laws or logical evolvement (development) of the thought in wide context. Composing his essay the student should:

· single out the fragments in the original as well as the lexical-grammatical chains necessary for constructing the secondary text (the text of an essay);

· rearrange the given input of the original;

· formulate generalizations;

· compose the logical plan of the text;

· change the succession of the logical plan points according to the semantic value of the key fragments.

The teaching function of an essay is to impart practical skills useful for further reading and preparation of reports. Essay writing builds up operations in transforming lexical and grammatical language means into the shape of compressed semantic transmission.

An annotation is the utmostly shortened account of the main implications of the text, the contents of the original, given in students’ own words. This allows for generalisation of the meaning of the original. Writing annotations requires using speech formulas of emotional evaluating character. These clichés might:

· concern the theme of the text/story/article, etc. – The text deals with… The article is on… The chapter discusses the important problem of…

· reveal the main idea of the text – The author emphasises the idea of… The main idea of the text is… The author believes… He points out that…

· be connected with the conclusion the author brings his reader to – The author comes to the conclusion… On reading the article, we realise the fact that… In conclusion the article reads… etc.

Finally, the problem of the students’ handwriting should not be neglected at all stages. It will be practised all the time, but occasionally. But even they have ‘learned’ to write in Roman script, students will still have problems. Thus, the teacher will have to focus on handwriting from time to time, perhaps to re-teach a point of difficulty and organise a short practice activity on it.

E.g.: Problem: Students do not use capital letters for proper names.

Presentation: The teacher writes a list of words on the board, including some names of towns, people, etc., but all with small letters. Students decide which words should begin with a capital letter and why.

Practice: The teacher rubs the words from the board and then dictates them. Students write them down.