Author: Deng, X. (2007). A pedagogical response to the different approaches to the teaching of ESL/EFL essay writing. STETS Language & Communication Review, 6(1), 15-20.
Three major approaches have typically been noted with respect to the teaching of writing in general and essay writing in particular: product, process, and genre (Badger and White, 2000)
Some typical pedagogical features should be defined to accommodate classroom applications for teachers.
Tessie's Note: I have classified the following features according to the Thai tertiary classroom common activities.
Product-based approaches (Badger and White, 2000; Hyland, 2003a)
Common Features for Thai EFL classrooms:
- focus on sentence-level accuracy
- writing lessons mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language
- writing paragraph elements: topic sentences, support sentences, concluding sentences
- using transitions
- paragraph development through particular organizing patterns such as narration, description, classification, and comparison and contrast. (Kaplan 1970; Silva 1990; Matsuda, 2003; Hyland, 2003)
- different ways of paragraph development: exemplification, classification, and cause and effect
- taught attention grabbing strategies
- ways to write thesis statement or central idea statement
- closing strategies
- writing development as mainly the result of the imitation of input
- controlled composition
Uncommon Features for Thai EFL classrooms:
- introducing online concordancing programs
- encourage to use online concordancers in the correction of their own errors
Process-based Approaches
Common features for Thai EFL classrooms:
- brainstorming/ generating ideas
- free writing
- revision
- portfolio assessment
- writing skills: planning, drafting, and revising
- emphasize on the content, ideas, and the negotiation of meaning
- multiple revisions
- peer revision
- revising and editing
Uncommon features for Thai EFL classrooms:
- guiding questions for students’ reflections of the reading and writing process
- student-teacher conferencing
- extensive reviewing
- multiple types of feedback
- structuring
- exploratory writing
- interaction with other people
Genre Approaches
(Sydney School/ English for Specific Purposes/ New Rhetoric)
In my opinion, these features are uncommon for Thai tertiary EFL writing instructions.
- write to communicate in social contexts
- introduce to some genre specific features in language use for academic essays
- analysis of various elements of a particular context before and during the writing process
- relationship between the writer and the reader
- use of appropriate tone or style (formal versus informal use)
- appropriate voice (impersonal and objective versus personal and subjective)
- compare different features of different genres (new stories, academic essays, publish writing textbooks)
- raise students’ awareness of contextual constraints of writing and different requirement for difficult genres of writing
Post-process approach =
An effective writing pedagogy that incorporates all the three approaches
AKA: Integrated Approach, Process-Genre Approach, etc.
Tessie's Note:
From my six year experience of teaching EFL writing to Thai tertiary students, I have done experiments in using many approaches of writing instruction in my classes. Product-oriented lessons are still in use in many tertiary courses as well as the emerging integration of autonomous learning for students. Process-oriented activities are interesting and motivating for students. I myself support process writing because it gradually increase 'writership' in students although it is a time-comsuming session. However, EFL instructors (and learners themselves) have a major responsibility to help students write for the prospective academic and professional community. Genre approach is gaining more attention in EFL context as well but I strongly believe that the best EFL writing instruction should be the combination of all three approaches and can be enhanced by the aid of IT to make the students' writing more authentic and purposeful. Students can't linger in endless grammar drills or brainstorming and drafting procedures anymore. They have to take risk of using the language in the real world to learn how to negotiate the meaning with the other English language users. The most convenient way is to write online and gain confidence in their language attempt.
No comments:
Post a Comment