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Writing Approaches

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25 views2 pages

Writing Approaches

Uploaded by

minatotchan2018
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CRMEF - Souss Massa Prof.

Rajaa HASSINE
Department of English
Inzegane

Approaches to Teaching Writing

By Dr. Ghazi Ghaith, American University of Beirut , 2000

There are several approaches to teaching writing that are presented by (Raimes, 1983) as
follows:

a-The Controlled-to-Free Approach

In the 1950s and early 1960, the audio-lingual method dominated second-language learning
This method emphasized speech and writing served to achieve mastery of grammatical and
syntactic forms. Hence teachers developed and used techniques to enable student to achieve
this mastery. The controlled-to-free approach in is sequential: students are first given sentence
exercises, then paragraphs to copy or manipulate grammatically by changing questions to
statements, present to past, or plural to singular. They might also change words to clauses or
combine sentences. With these controlled compositions, it is relatively easy to for students write
and yet avoid errors, which makes error correction easy. Students are allowed to try some free
composition after they have reached an intermediate level of proficiency. As such, this approach
stress on grammar, syntax, and mechanics. It emphasizes accuracy rather than fluency or
originality.

b-The Free-Writing Approach

This approach stresses writing quantity rather than quality. Teachers who use this approach
assign vast amounts of free writing on given topics with only minimal correction. The emphasis
in this approach is on content and fluency rather than on accuracy and form. Once ideas are
down on the page, grammatical accuracy and organization follow. Thus, teachers may begin
their classes by asking students to write freely on any topic without worrying about grammar and
spelling for five or ten minutes. The teachers does not correct these pieces of free writing. They
simply read them and may comment on the ideas the writer expressed. Alternatively, some
students may volunteer to read their own writing aloud to the class. Concern for “audience” and
“content” are seen as important in this approach.

c-The Paragraph-Pattern Approach

Instead of accuracy of grammar or fluency of content, the Paragraph-Pattern-Approach stresses


on organization. Students copy paragraphs and imitate model passages. They put scrambled
sentences into paragraph order. They identify general and specific statements and choose to
invent an appropriate topic sentence or insert or delete sentences. This approach is based on
the principle that in different cultures people construct and organize communication with each
other in different ways.
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d-The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach

This approach stresses on simultaneous work on more than one composition feature. Teachers
who follow this approach maintain that writing can not be seen as composed of separate skills
which are learned sequentially. Therefore, student should be trained to pay attention to
organization while they also work on the necessary grammar and syntax. This approach links
the purpose of writing to the forms that are needed to convey message.

e-The Communicative Approach

This approach stresses the purpose of writing and the audience for it. Student writers are
encouraged to behave like writers in real life and ask themselves the crucial questions about
purpose and audience:

Why am I writing this?


Who will read it?

Traditionally, the teacher alone has been the audience for student writing. But some feel that
writers do their best when writing is truly a communicative act, with a writer writing for a real
reader. As such, the readership may be extended to classmate and pen pals.

f-The Process Approach

Recently, the teaching of writing has moved away from a concentration on written product to an
emphasis on the process of writing. Thus, writers ask themselves:

How do I write this?


How do I get started?

In this approach, students are trained to generate ideas for writing, think of the purpose and
audience, write multiple drafts in order to present written products that communicate their own
ideas. Teachers who use this approach give students time to tray ideas and feedback on the
content of what they write in their drafts. As such, writing becomes a process of discovery for
the students as they discover new ideas and new language forms to express them.
Furthermore, learning to write is seen as a developmental process that helps students to write
as professional authors do, choosing their own topics and genres, and writing from their own
experiences or observations. A writing process approach requires that teachers give students
greater responsibility for, and ownership of, their own learning. Students make decisions about
genre and choice of topics, and collaborate as they write.

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