教材分析 第九章

学科教学英语谷义苗
Chapter 9 Writing Skills
Along with the other three skills, writing has developed and accumulated many insights into the nature of language and learning. This chapter will first survey the reasons for writing and the different types of writing associated with them.
Reasons for Writing
We can now make a few initial observations arising directly and indirectly from thinking about the kinds of writing we do. The implication of points for the teaching of writing are taken up below.
1．A typical ‘writing profile’ covers a great range of styles. We may just write a list of nouns, or a number, or even simply a visual representation(a list, taking a phone message, drawing a map).
2．In straightforward terms of frequency, the great majority of people write very much less than they talk and listen, although the amount of writing may be increasing as people have more access to computers and to email communication.
3．Some ways of classifying types of writing can be suggested. Hedge(2005) offers a more detailed breakdown under the six headings of personal, creative, social, study and institutional. Her checklist is self explanatory, and is reproduced above in full.
Writing Materials in the Language Class
It is now time to ask what part writing can and does play in the language class, given its more limited role for most people outside an educational setting.
It would be difficult to argue the case that writing in the language class should only mirror the educational function, expect perhaps in certain ‘specific-purpose’ programmes such as English Specific Purposes （e.g. nursing, business）or English for Academic Purposes. At the same time, it is not immediately obvious how the notion of ‘authenticity’ and the opportunities for transfer from real world to classroom can be maintained to the extent that this can be done for speaking and listening skills.
‘Traditional’ writing activities
1. Controlled sentence construction The range of activity types is considerable, and typical approaches include:
●Providing a model sentence and asking students to construct a parallel
sentence with different lexical items.
●Inserting a missing grammatical form.
●Composing sentences from tabular information, with a model
provided.
●Joining sentences to make a short paragraph, inserting supplied
conjunctions.
2.Free composition Apparently at the order end of the spectrum, a ‘free
writing’ task requires learners to ‘create’ an essay on a given topic, often as part of a language examination.
3.The ‘homework’function The brief and generalized summary indicates several trends in the ‘traditional’ teaching of writing from which current views have both developed and moved away:
●There is an emphasis on accuracy.
●The focus of attention is the finished product, whether a sentence or a
whole composition.
●The teacher’s role is to be judge of the finished work.
●Writing often has a consolidating function.
The Written Product
1.Levels of writing Typical organizational principles for materials include paragraph structuring, particularly related to functional categories, and the use of a range of linking devices. Sentence-level and grammar practice is not omitted but, as the diagram suggests, the levels of writing include four levels-- handwriting, spelling, punctuation; sentences, grammar, word choice; paragraphs; overall organization.
2.Audience The following audience suggestions reflect this dual aspect. We have listed addressees along with a few suggested topics, but of course the possibilities are considerably greater than this. Our students, then, can write:
●To other students: invitations, instructions, directions
●For the whole class: a magazine, poster information, a cookbook with
recipes from different countries
●For new students: information on the school and its locality
●To the teacher about themselves and the teacher can reply or indeed
initiate
●For themselves: lists, notes, diaries
●To penfriends
●To other people in the school: asking about interests and hobbies,
conducting a survey.
●To people and organizations outside the school: writing for
information answering advertisements
●If the school has access to a network of computers, many of these
activities can be carried out electronically as well.
The Writing Process
Hedge(2005) provides a comprehensive range of process-oriented classroom produces teachers can make use of. Her book on teaching writing consists of four sections: Communicating, Composing, Crafting and Improving.
Communicating represents the first stage of the writing process. The activities suggested in this section are designed to help learners become used to writing as self-discovery and as a means of communication.
Composing is the second stage in which the learners experience the
mental processes of gathering and organizing ideas before actually starting to write.
Crafting is the third stage, in which learners are guided to produce well structured written work.
The final stage is Improving, when the teacher and the class collaborate to improve the quality of writing through awareness activities such as conferencing on plans and drafts, peer editing, reformulation and checking accuracy.
Writing in the classroom
The classroom can provide an environment for writing at each of the three main stages of (1) gathering ideas: pre-writing and planning,(2) working on drafts, and (3) preparing the final version. A few typical examples, all involving oral skills, must suffice:
●‘Brainstorming’ a topic by talking with other students to collect ideas.
●Co-operating at the planning stage, sometimes in pairs/groups, before
agreeing a plan for the class to work from.
●‘Jigsaw’writing, for example, using a picture stimulus for different
sections of the class to create a different part of the story.
●Editing another student’s draft.
●Preparing interview questions, perhaps for a collaborative project. Correcting Written Work
Ferris(2006) summarizes the studies that support the effectiveness of
teacher feedback, reports the results of her own carefully controlled study. She observes that the influential factors on feedback effectiveness include Learners’ proficiency
Manner of feedback
Kinds of errors
Timing of feedback
Ferris(2003) emphasizes the importance of principled feedback. For example, she proposes feedback guidelines that remind teachers to Prioritize
Treat students as individuals
Be encouraging
Be clear and helpful
Avoid imposing their own ideas on students writers, leaving the final decisions in the hands of the writer.
Ferris(2003) provides an example of process-oriented feedback procedures:
1st draft- in class peer response
2nd draft- expert feedback
3rd draft- focused editing workshop
Final draft- careful editing and proof-reading
Grade and final comments.
Hedge(2005) refers to think of ‘correction’ under the more general
heading of ‘improving’, a cover term that stresses the interacting of marking procedures with processing categories.。