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October 1, 2001
New Areas of Motivation in Teaching Second-Language Writing
By Galina Faustova
In the recent past, writing was the most ignored of the language skills. But attitudes have changed about the role of writing in teaching a second language.
As a teacher of English in a school in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan* with an intensive language learning curriculum, I consider writing to be the tool with which students can explore, analyze, remember, and think. The Internet, e-mail, and I*EARN (International Education and Resource Network) give students not only a good chance to improve their computer skills but also an opportunity to communicate with an authentic audience and raise their writing skills to a realistic level. This article discusses some of the challenges I face while teaching writing in a traditional way as well as methods of handling these challenges with the help of two new types of motivation: an authentic audience and a purpose for writing.
As a student, I was taught that among the four language skills, writing was the least important. It was considered to be secondary to grammar and was often the last skill taught. But many changes in the past few years in teaching second-language writing have increased its importance. I have taught English for thirteen years and have concluded that writing must be the natural outlet for students' reflection on their speaking, listening, and reading experiences in their second language.
What is the traditional purpose of our students' writing activities? It is to catch and correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Having students perform exercises with which we are already familiar can facilitate this: grammar exercises from course books and writing compositions on given topics. For many years the focus of these types of writing exercises was primarily on language structure, and as a teacher I faced several challenges when students were given the task of writing an essay.
- My students usually chose the easiest way to express what they already knew, something they knew they could control. The result was writing that was filled with clichıs, which was very boring both for the student doing the writing and for me reading all those papers.
- Another challenge was lack of interest in writing when, for example, they did not have enough information on a subject or they simply had no particular desire or reason to communicate information.
I realized that I had to change my approach to teaching writing, and I began assigning essays on topics that were close to students and were truly of interest to them. Yet this technique did not prove to be successful in achieving my aim--to teach my students to create writing that could be a natural outlet for them. What did I actually have? I had students creating so-called writer-based prose. This happens when students do not naturally take into account what the reader may need to know, but instead make references to the events and people that are significant in their little worlds but unknown to outsiders. This type of writing, of course, is appropriate when keeping a diary, but it does not work when writing essays.
- One more point worth mentioning is that I was the only audience of their writing. Obviously, if the students are always writing only for their teacher, there is a risk that they will simply try to guess what the teacher wants and deliver it without any effort, without caring about what they have written. That is why I had to find a solution to this problem that could really help my students express their thoughts in writing.
One of the methods I thought would be successful was to stimulate students' writing with the help of their classmates. If students know that what they are writing will be read by real people other than the teacher--people who care about the message, not the accuracy--then writing often becomes much easier. The students also find it easier to decide what to say and how to say it. I practiced these activities by asking students to exchange their essays with one another and analyze them according to given requirements. This activity worked well with one group but was a failure with the other.
Our schools usually value traditional experience, but in a time of rapid social and global changes, what worked in the past may no longer prepare our children for the future. Among such global changes are, of course, the Internet, e-mail, and I*EARN.
Working with I*EARN
For three years my students have been working in I*EARN, a nonprofit educational network with three Learning Circles (highly interactive, project-based partnerships among schools located throughout the world). The three Learning Circles are Places and Perspectives, Mind Works, and Computer Chronicles.
Places and Perspectives
The Places and Perspectives Circle encourages students to explore regional history, culture, government, and geography by sharing their knowledge with people from other locations. The goal is to help students understand how historical events and geographic conditions interact and to give students a deeper understanding of themselves, their families, and their communities.
Mind Works
Mind Works helps students learn how to communicate their thoughts and feelings in writing and then share and compare them with other students from distant places.
Computer Chronicles
Working in the Computer Chronicles Circle, students have the opportunity to sponsor one or more sections of an online newspaper as their Learning Circle project. They solicit articles from their partner classes and edit them to create one section of the newspaper. This section is combined with the other sections sponsored by Circle partners to form the completed newspaper.
Students working in the I*EARN club.
Thus, working in I*EARN is a chance for me to implement new ideas about teaching writing by corresponding with a real audience by means of writing in English. In the Learning Circles, students have real readers of their writing, often in other countries, so there is no need to invent an audience. Students exchange information while working on various sponsored projects, which are based on the ideas of their authors. While working on such projects, my students no longer create artificial, writer-based prose; rather, they create reader-based prose that takes the reader's needs into account. The sponsored projects can be specific forms of writing such as personal narratives, poetry, dialogues, school fables, local myths, or descriptions of local products. A student can also select a topic to sponsor and request different forms of writing on subjects such as the families, jobs, schools, or cities of the other students in the Learning Circle.
It is sometimes amazing how just the act of writing itself helps the writer to remember, analyze, and think in a foreign language. Working in the Learning Circles, we have a specific work schedule, and from the very beginning students write letters to pen pals asking for information about them and their lives. Students' interest in writing grows with the help of a classroom survey, which is designed to help them understand how people in the other classrooms are similar and different. With the survey, students introduce themselves and describe their schools, where they live, their favorite singers, their hobbies, and other interests.
The work on projects may take various forms. The main idea is that students choose the best form of expressing themselves through writing. Of course, grammatical accuracy is still an important goal for my students, but I have found that my writing class has become more exploratory since participating in the Learning Circles. Students are encouraged to experiment with their ideas through writing and then share their writing with their partners in the Learning Circles.
The outcome of this work is printing one's project in the Circle publication. Students evaluate, select, and edit the articles they receive for their projects. Professional writers do this kind of information gathering and sorting before they write, and now students also are being taught specific techniques to enable them to use writing as a tool to help them think.
Improving Computer Skills
In addition, our students have a real opportunity to improve computer skills. When we began working three years ago in I*EARN, only three of my students had good computer skills. Twelve of them did not have even basic knowledge of keyboarding or practical knowledge of Internet search techniques.
Thanks to our school's director and students' parents who sponsored the idea of buying computers, we now have everything we need to implement new ideas and experiment with them. The result of our work in I*EARN is that at the end of the session students exchange project reports and assemble their Circle publication.
Our participation in I*EARN is an extracurricular activity that gives students a good chance to improve their writing skills. Of course, during my lessons I focus on the development of all four language skills systematically, not just writing. But I can definitely say that I am no longer facing as many challenges while teaching writing as I was before. Of course, in this article I mainly focus on those students who are constant participants in the I*EARN club. While writing, they are now more relaxed, and their writing differs from that of the students who are taught in the traditional way. The following examples will help you see this difference, which is mainly in the purpose for which students create their writing.
Traditional Teaching of Writing
The students were given the task of writing a 50-word paragraph to demonstrate their knowledge of modals and conditionals. An eleventh-grade student wrote the following:
Everyone in our family thinks that my sister Dolly is going to get married. If she weren't going to get married her boy-friend wouldn't come to her every day and she wouldn't kiss him every minute. My sister must be in love with him. I hope they marry soon. I really want it because I don't want to share my room with her any more. If this room were only mine I would do there everything I want.
The main focus of this task was grammatical accuracy. It is very important for me, as the teacher, to see the result of my work. But it is impossible to determine whether the students were interested in the task or wrote their paragraphs easily.
New Types of Motivation
The writing of some active participants in I*EARN projects is presented below. I have chosen the work of two students working in two different Learning Circles.
Artyom is a ninth-grade student participating in the Places and Perspectives Circle. Vlad is a tenth-grade student who is interested in the Mind Works Circle. Remember that this work is an extracurricular activity. Judging by their engagement, I can say that they have quite different attitudes toward this work compared with their attitude toward home assignments, which they perform mainly for marks. As for their writing, it was done without my help or prompt and contains valuable information reflecting their inner world.
The following examples are quoted directly from my students' Learning Circles.
An Example of a Student's Writing in the Places and Perspectives Circle
The project sponsored by our friends from Slovenia in the Places and Perspectives Circle was "A Five-Day Trip to Your Country." They began their project with the following ideas:
We learn about other countries at school, from books, TV but we think you can never really know the country until you visit it, see it, feel itı. That is why we have decided to go on a five-day-trip to see your country. Before we come we would like to know what to expect. And here comes your task as YOU will be our guide.
We would like you to write:
- a complete itinerary and the timetable for each day of our trip (beginning with 8.00 till 22.00)
- a short description of the places and sights we will see
- what time of the year is the best time to visit your country and why
- where we are going to stay and sleep (either it is a five-star hotel or in sleeping bags under the stars)
- if there is something special we should not forget to take with
- if it is possible a menu for each day.
The following is an extract from Artyom's writing in response to the Slovenian students' requests.
A five-day trip to Kazakhstan
Ladies and gentlemen! We have a special offer for you. It is a five-day trip to Kazakhstan, where you can go to in summer.
We organize such trips in summer, because it is the best time to visit Kazakhstan (especially the beginning of summer).
This is the trip route:
South Kazakhstan (town of Turkestan)--Almaty city--Astana city--East Kazakhstan oblast (Ust-Kamenogorsk, Bukhtarma). Our trip lasts only five days, so all you have to take with you is some clothes and a camera.
The first day.
You'll go to Kazakhstan by plane. You'll arrive in Turkestan at 24.00. You may choose any room you like in our hotel.
8.00--breakfast. You'll have baursak with green tea and some fruit. Baursak is a traditional Kazakh food made of dough and sugar.
9.30--beginning of sightseeing.
Turkestan is a town built 1500 years ago. For centuries it's been the biggest cultural and religious center for Turkish nationalities, so there are many interesting places to visit. There are many historical buildings in Turkestan, and it's temples are amazing.
14.00--you go to hotel with your guide and have dinner. There is borshch for dinner. It's Russian soup made of beetroot and cabbage. (During your trip you'll eat Kazakh and Russian food, because these are the most popular cuisines in Kazakhstan).
15.30--you leave town of Turkestan. You'll go to Almaty city by bus. During the bus trip you can enjoy the sights of beautiful Kazakh steppe. During this trip you may eat some food and drink juice prepared especially for your comfort.
20.30--you arrive in Almaty. There is a hotel for you to stay in.
21.00--supper. It contains beshparmak (soup with pieces of dough and mutton with onions) and koumiss (fermented mare's milk). These are Kazakh meals.
An Example of a Student's Writing in the Mind Works Circle
Vlad took part in "The International Music Scene" project in the Mind Works Circle and simply shared his ideas about music.
Music in our country and town
If I am not mistaken, in different countries there are different tastes of music. Generally speaking about youth, it is necessary to note that all teenagers love to listen to the same music (American, English, Russian and other kinds). I think, that in the ages of 14-18 all tastes coincide. Therefore there is nothing inconceivable, the Kazakhstan teenagers love the same music as teenagers from other countries.
Most popular bands and singers in our town (Ust-Kamenogorsk) are Merlin Manson, Five, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Eiffel 65 and so on. In our country and town popular groups and music are not only foreign music, but also native (bands and singers of Russia and Kasakhstan). Favorite bands are Mummij Troll, Zemfira, Michael Circle, Viachaslav Butusov and so on. Without exception, all styles of music are popular among our teenagers. In our city many TV channels broadcast various musical clips, as MSM. Therefore, we are very excited when we are watching them.
As for me, most of all, I like to listen to different kinds of music. Music became a part of my life. Consequently, I think that music must be present in the life of each man, as it brings to the life a lot of fun to our daily life. If a man is very sad he would listen to his favorite music and marvelous feelings will appear in him. In general music is playing the leading role in the life of all people of the world. I think our views and feelings depend on music. All kinds of music differently reflect the condition of people. Therefore we ought to listen to all styles of music without exception.
If somebody's views coincide with mine, please write your own ideas and feelings about music.
Although these examples of my students' work contain some errors in grammar, style, and punctuation, they demonstrate that the students have managed to reach the goal--to express themselves and create real writing.
References
Flower, Linda, p. 19 in Writer-Based Prose: College English, Thomas Kral, Ed. (1979).
Leki, Ilona, "Teaching Second-Language Writing: Where We Seem to Be," English Teaching Forum, 1991.
* The city of Ust-Kamenogorsk, in the country of Kazakhstan, lies in the southern Altai mountain range on the border of Russia and Kazakhstan. Its population is nearly 400,000, and it is an administrative center of Eastern Kazakhstan Oblast (Province). The 280-year-old city was founded as a fortress by Peter the Great to strengthen the borders of the Russian Empire. It is located on the banks of two rivers, the Irtysh and the Ulba. The city's industries include metal production, textiles, machine engineering, electronic equipment, and some food industries. The unique natural beauty of the region draws visitors to enjoy the mountains, the riverbanks, and the fir- and spruce-tree forests.
E-mail: Galina Faustova
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