This session outlines how to make writing more learner-centred and meaningful using a process-based approach with error codes and peer-editing to increase meta-linguistic awareness.
Participants will create a process-based writing assignment, and practice using error codes.
2) What is Process-Based Writing?
Writing is viewed as a creative act which requires time and positive feedback to be learned and done well. The teacher moves away from being someone who sets students a writing topic and receives the finished product for correction without any intervention in the writing process itself. There is a focus on a variety of different classroom activities which promote the development of language use: brainstorming, group discussion, re-writing, etc., and this approach can have use some or all of the stages below.
Stage 1: Generating ideas by brainstorming and discussion.
Stage 2: Students extend ideas into note form, and judge quality and usefulness of ideas. Stage 3: Students organize ideas into a mind map/plan to help structure texts.
Stage 4: Students write the first draft. This is done in class and frequently in pairs or groups.
Stage 5: Drafts are exchanged, so that students become the readers of each other's work. Stage 6: Drafts are returned and improvements are made based upon peer feedback, which can help them improve their own writing.
Stage 7: A final draft is written.
Stage 8: Students once again exchange and read each other's work and perhaps even write a response or reply.
What is the difference between process and product-based writing?
Process-driven approaches show some similarities with task-based learning, in that students are given considerable freedom within the task. They are not curbed by pre-emptive teaching of lexical or grammatical items. However, process approaches do not repudiate all interest in the product, (i.e. the final draft). The aim is to achieve the best product possible. What differentiates a process-focussed approach from a product-centred one is that the outcome of the writing, the product, is not preconceived.
Adapted from: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/product-process-writing-a-comparison
Error Codes:
WW: Wrong Word: As our car flew over the mountains, we saw snow.
Prep: Preposition: As our plane flew on the mountains, we saw snow.
WT: Wrong Tense: As our plane flew over the mountains, we see snow.
WWF: Wrong Word Form: As our plane flight over the mountains, we saw snow.
WO: Word Order: As our plane over the mountains, flew we saw snow.
Sp: Spelling: As our plane flue over the mountains, we saw snow.
P: Punctuation: As our plane flew over the mountains; we saw snow.
MW: Missing word: As our plane flew over the mountains, saw snow.
Gr: Grammar: Subject/Verb agreement, plurals, etc.
Adapted from: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/writing-correction-code
Teaching Task: With a partner, create a plan for a process-based writing assignment, and share it with another pair. What is the topic? What pre-writing tasks will you use to generate ideas and vocabulary? Graphic organizers? Peer-editing and feedback? How will you sequence the other stages?
Process-Based Writing: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/approaches-process-writing
Writing Activities: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/writing-activities?fbclid=IwAR0vNept6ieo2K5izqLPOkGtFrKEubC6J3x6yh-MFWuJx7NPHf7wuD9wgz8