Search

To date writing has not received sufficient attention at the primary level in Hong Kong albeit numerous initiatives in the current curriculum reform launched in 2001. Typically writing is taught based on a prescribed textbook in Hong Kong primary schools. The traditional approach to teaching writing is mechanical and rigid. Learners are forced to follow a prescribed pattern to write. The content is standard and banal. Language-wise it is far from being rich because everybody uses the same vocabulary and sentence structure. In terms of teaching methodology it is not in line with the current approach of integrating various skills as advocated in Communicative Language Teaching. This chapter reports an action research conducted in a Primary 5 English classroom. The research question is how to make an English writing class interesting and stimulating. An entirely new method is adopted. Stories are used as the teaching materials, and integrated skills of listening, speaking and writing are adopted. Qualitative research methods are employed. The following methods are used to collect data: pre- and post- interviews with the students, pre- and post- interviews with the teacher, journals written by the teacher, class observation reports written by the researcher, the stories written by the students. The findings of this study affirm the belief that using an integrative-narrative method is an effective way to teach L2 writing in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of our contribution is to expound the relationship between philosophy and argumentation. We propose to circumscribe the effects of philosophical oral teaching/learning on the writing abilities of young pupils. The central hypothesis is that the original, moral, social or cultural values discussed in philosophical oral workshops develop the capacity to better generate ideas, because philosophical practice produces more complex thinking than ordinary co-operative conversation. Within this frame-work, the activity of argumentation focuses on ensuring that young writers can transfer their oral abilities to manage the process of negotiation when writing. A study conducted during a two-year period with four experimental groups supports our presentation. The results illustrate the positive transfer between philosophical activity and predisposition to write argumentatively. The conceptualisation process was quantitatively improved as soon as children reached the age of seven. Hence, philosophical dialogue with its complex characteristics should be considered as focus of activities in teaching and learning to write. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen several centralising initiatives in the English education system, including statutory curriculum content and assessment arrangements and regular school inspections. The chapter briefly sets this centralisation in its historical context. The latest initiative, the National Literacy Strategy, has encouraged greater use of teaching objectives, dedicated literacy teaching time and increased use of shared and guided teaching approaches. However, a recent increase in reading standards has not been matched by a similar rise in writing attainment. A recent report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate has highlighted some recurring weaknesses in the teaching of writing in English primary schools: an over-reliance on duplicated worksheets and stimuli for writing; an inappropriate balance between reading and writing; and insufficient transfer of skills learned in literacy lessons to work in other subjects. Research studies are identified that will inform practice and help to address these weaknesses. These studies include research into composing processes; meta-analyses of effective teaching approaches; and genre theory, particularly in relation to non-fiction texts. The chapter ends with a discussion of the possible role of grammatical reference in the teaching of writing and the need for more classroom-based studies of children's writing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents and discusses a method, peer-based intervention (PBI), in which conscious reflection of key-stroke logged writing sessions is used to improve written composition. Multiple writing opportunities are used together with discussion and observation of the writer's own and a peer's text. The method entails the theoretical assumption that the release of cognitive resources in working memory helps writers to focus the attention towards deeper structures of the text under construction as well as towards the writing process per se and thus assist in raising writers' metacognitive awareness of writing. The chapter reports on a study of Swedish 13-year-olds composing descriptive and argumentative texts in their first language (L1), with and without PBI. The texts were graded and all revisions undertaken during the writing process were analysed according to their impact on the text product. Further, text quality and frequency of revisions were tested statistically in order to delimit the impact of the PBI treatment. The results indicate that the method was generally successful for low L1 ability writers, while high L1 ability writers benefited from the treatment in the argumentative assignments. The treatment further raised writers' awareness of contents features involved in writing by increased frequency of text-based revisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter offers a theoretical and empirical comparison of ‘learning by doing' and learning-by observation, applied to the field of reading and writing. Participants are fifteen-year old high school students, who followed one of a series of experimental courses on composition and/or comprehension of argumentative text. The effect study focuses on observational learning, as opposed to a more traditional ‘learning by doing' pedagogy. In two experimental groups, students (15 y.) observed either writing or reading activities performed by age-group students. Observations were made by means of authentic videotape recordings. It was the observer's task to compare and evaluate the activities of the observed students. These two instructional programs were compared with two more conventional (control) programs in which participants learned to read or write by applying theory in exercises. Intra-modal learning as well as inter-modal transfer results were assessed for both writing and reading. Results show that this type of observational learning was more effective than ‘learning by doing'. Learning effects for the observation groups surpassed the results for the matching ‘learning by doing' groups. Moreover, learning to write by observation appeared to be more efficient since the experimental writing subjects more readily transferred their increased writer's knowledge to reading tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can young writers enhance the quality of their texts by observing real readers trying to comprehend them? What do these writers learn from such observations? In this chapter the authors suggest that writing instruction can be made more effective by making communication failures and successes observable. To a certain extent, writers are blind to the communicative failures in their texts since they have all the prior knowledge to fill in the gaps. On-line observation of readers may help them in detecting these gaps, and in learning to repair or avoid them. An experiment is carried out in which four groups of students write an instructional text and receive different types of feedback for revision: self-evaluation, reader observation, reader observation with written comments from the reader, and reader observation of an unknown text. Effects are assessed on revision quality and on learning (knowledge of criteria for successful communication). Results show that all three observation conditions were more effective than the self-evaluation condition, and that observation supported by written comments was most effective with respect to both text quality and learning. Moreover, the readers who formulated these comments outscored the other readers on writing a first version of a similar text; they also could recall more criteria for successful writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter takes as its starting point a 10-year-project in the upper secondary school in the north of Sweden, called "The Garden Of Thought", which involved students in creative writing such as poetry, as part of the ordinary school curriculum. One of the main questions was whether the students accept creative work of this kind as part of their schoolwork, since a poem can be highly personal, involving love and the deepest feelings. A recent study of mother tongue teaching in Sweden shows that students mainly practise what the author calls "internal schools genres", i.e. genres that are constructed for the purpose of the school alone (Nyström, 2000). It also shows that many students write in their free time. Students outside the boundaries of the school use more creative genres, such as poetry and song lyrics. It is suggested that creative writing activities should be a part of the ordinary school curriculum. The question I pose in this chapter is, thus, how do young people themselves feel about these forms of creative writing in school? Are they prepared to break down existing borders between their schooling and their private lives? In my study it is evident that writing poetry could become a common part of mother-tongue teaching. At the same time there are evident differences between writing in the privacy of home and in the public space of school. Students, it seems, develop a range of strategies to deal with this dualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments are reported, which are aimed at verifying a main prediction: since the monitoring of the processes that are necessary for correctly maintaining or restoring text local coherence is a significant feature of both text comprehension and writing, educational treatment can improve this type of monitoring in writing. The treatment works directly on reading comprehension and/or on the writing revision phase that consists in detecting incorrect text gaps. The independent variables in Exp.l were three educational sessions that focused on text gaps requiring inference from both prior knowledge and previous text information in order to restore coherence. In Exp.2 as many sessions focused on a revision task concerning peers' written texts containing impossible-to-bridge gaps. The common dependent variable was a local coherence measure applied to written texts produced by participants (18 approximately-12-yr-old children) These experimental participants were matched, based on their writing pre-tests scores, with 18 controls of the same age, and they outperformed the controls on the written post-test. In Exp.2 a writing revision post-test was also used, where experimentals again outperformed controls, but no correlation between the two dependent measures was found. New hypotheses were drawn from this datum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present investigation tested the effectiveness of an educational project aimed at improving the ability to take the addressee's stance into account and to apply it to the planning of argumentative discourse and text. This aim is derived from the assumption that the ability to make argumentation suitable to the addressee's stance (Perelman & Olbrecht-Tyteca, 1958) is an important condition for conceiving effective claims, arguments and counter-arguments and for expressing them both in oral discourse and in written compositions. The educational methodology adopted can be characterised as a route from oral to written expression of argumentation (Lumbelli & Camagni, 1993). In 9 experimental sessions 30 high school students (a) first discussed upon topics selected by themselves, observed and evaluated their own transcribed utterances (b) were presented with a problem-solving situation, in which they were given the task to detect the most effective route to make a hypothetical addressee change his/her point of view into an opposite one, (c) were presented with a special kind of modelling in which there was the experimenter who talked aloud while reading a few argumentative texts which had been in advance evaluated as significant instances of argumentation and counterargumentation. The argumentative competence was assessed by a test specially tapping the ability to take the addressee's point of view into account in the choice of the best argumentation (among four ones) and by the evaluation of written compositions according to categories based on the same criterion. 30 students matched on both these argumentative ability tests worked as control group. Experimental students significantly outperformed the control ones as to their sensitivity to audience's needs and their ability to adjust the arguments and counter-arguments to the addressee's stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I reintroduce and discuss imitation as a tool for the learning and teaching of writing. I begin with some overall reflections on teaching and learning. Then, I focus more closely on imitation as a dimension in teaching and learning, arguing for its use. In this connection I refer to theoretical treatment of imitation, mostly in Piaget's work. Thus prepared I then describe how imitation can be used meaningfully as a tool for the learning and teaching of writing, without contradicting modem pedagogical principles like motivation toward self-activity and creativity. Finally, I present some reflections on the writing process which are not derived from the traditional coding metaphor for writing and reading texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter investigates the writing process in narratives by Greek deaf students in two different conditions: a) translation from Sign Language into written Greek from video stimuli and b) direct composition in written Greek from picture stimuli. Following language assessments, the deaf students were divided into three language groups according to their differing abilities in Greek Sign Language and Greek. Two parameters were manipulated: language skills and source material used for writing. The study aims to answer the questions: a) How do the different groups make use of the source material (which students benefit from the use of sign language?) b) Which material produces better written texts? Four qualitative analyses have been undertaken on the texts: amount/type of information given, organisation of information, grammatical characteristics of the text, and error analysis. The results show that the use of sign language in the writing process has positive effects only on specific groups and on specific aspects of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter explores how a secondary English teacher working with students aged 14-15 enabled them to use their popular cultural practices as a resource for writing. The chapter provides examples of conventional classroom situations in which this teacher created a space for students to bring their own semiotic resources to bear on the curriculum. It argues the need for English teachers to become sensitised to the complex literacy practices in which their students engage outside school and to the ways these practices are bound up with their social relationships and sense of identity. The discussion chalenges conventional understandings of ‘reading, ' ‘writing', ‘speaking' and ‘listening' as components of the English curriculum, arguing that a more contemporary understanding of literacy must take into account the multi-modal practices in which students engage in beyond school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially, only the final product of the writing process (e.g., a document) was presented on the Web. More recently, however, attempts have been made to utilize the shared space for collaborative aspects of writing, such as revision and reviewing. The revision stage of the writing process has to deal with a new element: digital annotations. This chapter presents a longitudinal study in a graduate writing course in which is observed how third-party reviewers produced 276 digital annotations while using the DHS, a Web-based annotation system. We mainly focus on the form of the digital comments and the needs experienced by third-party reviewers when communicating annotations that would lead to a change in the original text. Our study showed that reviewers devise their own strategies to link their comments with the text that may have implications for design. It also revealed the need for the original text to be displayed and readily available for editing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of the teaching-learning process is closely linked to the level of adjustment between teacher help on the one hand and the process of constructing meanings by the pupils on the other. To attain this level of adjustment the teacher has to use communicative strategies that evolve throughout the pupils' schooling. These strategies also define the teaching style that we studied for two consecutive school years in a Spanish classroom with three to five year old pupils, To be able to analyse the information obtained, we created a multidimensional analysis system which allows us to describe both the quantitative and qualitative evolution of the constructivist teaching style in the literacy progress. Quantitatively, through the percentage variations of teacher participation compared to her pupils, and qualitatively through directivity, understanding this to be the level of information given by the teacher which gives the pupils a greater or lesser degree of freedom when managing their own learning process. Likewise, we have been able to observe how the teacher's and pupils' interactive strategies evolve together in the process through which the latter start to gain greater autonomy in resolving group-writing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter concerns a study aimed at determining the effects of peer interactions on the regulation processes involved in narrative writing. The research is carried out in three sixth-grade classrooms (age 11-12 years) which have followed an instructional sequence designed to optimize processes of metacognitive regulation during narrative text production. The effects of two experimental conditions — (1) individual production, (2) dyadic production involving collaborative planning and revision of a joint text composed of individually drafted episodes — are compared with respect to the revisions introduced between the initial draft and the final text. Transfer effects from dyadic text production to subsequent individual text production are also analyzed. Relevant findings show that although more revisions are carried out during dyadic collaboration, this effect shows no transfer; on the other hand, the different types of revision observed under each condition do show significant transfer to individual production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing instruction faces the challenge of elaborating a theory of writing in school contexts through the observation and analysis of how cognitive benefits of written language are reached. Different perspectives on the concept "context", considered in studies on written composition, are integrated in a model of context interaction that becomes the theoretical basis to the research. The relationship among four contexts within the collaborative composition process of an explanatory text are explored: the context of the writer, gathering the experience and knowledge on written language and written language use formerly acquired by the writer; the context of reception or social context of written language use; the context of the task, where the composition process develops; and the context of teaching and learning writing. Eleven-year-olds try to explain to eight-year-old readers the laws of light reflection through a kaleidoscope. Data analysis is carried out in a multiple case study in natural settings applied to verbal interactions among the participants in five collaborative writing groups. The parameters observed refer to: a) characteristics of the composition process, aiming to find out any general procedures in the processes followed by different groups; b) explicit references to readers, aiming to establish the influence of the context of reception; c) explicit utterances including references to the second person pronoun, to follow the presence of the different contexts involved in the process, d) reformulations of the text being written, known as "attempted text", aiming to observe the writers' consideration of the different contexts participating in the composition process. The results show the relevance of the context of reception in the writers' representation of the task and of the text, and acknowledge the presence of multiple contexts dynamically interacting in the context of the task. The study concludes that group work enhances knowledge building on discursive situations, on language, and on writing composition strategies, and argues for the importance of designing instructional sequences that allow the negotiation of explicit learning goals and the monitoring and control of one's own learning and writing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents a didactic sequence aimed at introducing punctuation in the second grade. The teacher worked with 21 boys and girls (7 and 8 years of age). Based on Olson and Kamawar (2002) and Ferreiro and Pontecorvo (1996), we assumed that the use of punctuation would be enhanced through the writing of texts that required the students to delimit boundaries between quoted speech and narrative text. Jokes were chosen as target texts. The didactic sequence included the production of three drafts that were revised with the teacher and other students in collaborative tasks, as well as exercises specially designed to facilitate the distinction between direct and indirect speech and the inclusion of hyphens for quoted speech, capital letters and other punctuation marks. The first drafts show an almost total lack of punctuation. In second drafts, children can differentiate direct speech through the use of punctuation and through lexicalization. Final drafts include a more conventional use of hyphens, and the use of other punctuation devices to delimit clauses and sentences. The findings are related to the theoretical framework and suggestions for educators are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although writing has its own set of characteristics and its psycholinguistic processing follows different patterns, it cannot be seen in isolation from oral language or reading. Indeed, it can be said that oral and written language nourish each other, and this interaction should be borne in mind when they are practised. A first step towards dealing with writing in a meaningful way is proposed here through a language method (Girolami-Boulinier, 1984) and three reading techniques (indirect, semi-direct and silent direct) (Girolami-Boulinier, 1993; Girolami-Boulinier & Cohen-Rak, 1985). The language method trains learners to immediately identify the semantic groups of sentences they hear and produce, as well as the nature and function of the head words — "mots-centres" according to Girolami-Boulinier (Girolami-Boulinier, 1987: 38) — of sentence elements. The logical organisation that the proposed language method implies should also be taken into account. The reading techniques improve speaking and prevent writing errors which have to do with language misunderstandings and misuses, with misperceptions at the level of speaking and listening, and with lack of attention. This approach will benefit orthography in its broadest sense, from mere decoding to language mastery, punctuation and style. Furthermore, it prepares learners to exercise and cultivate the different writing practices required by today's society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter focuses on effective learning and teaching to write in kindergarten, considering L1. The research is part of a larger program that aims at exploring the relationship between learning to write and learning to read in the classroom, from kindergarten to grade two, where spelling becomes autonomous (children from 4 to 8 years old; see Rieben & Saada-Robert, 1997; Saada-Robert & Balslev, 2001). The actual results focus on the impact of emergent writing practices on the awareness of the alphabetic principle in a comprehensive way. They point out the benefit of teaching writing simultaneously with reading, from the very beginning of school culture acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]