Writing in the Young Learner (YL) classroom: a Neglected Skill?

Defining Terms Writing is an integral part of literacy development and, in some ways; it may seem artificial to separate out reading from writing. However, writing is a complex skill in its own right and so focusing on it, allows us to consider it in more depth. The term writing is , of course, am iguous as it can refer to oth the process or act of writing and the product e.g. Did you do any writing at school today ? Writing a neglected skill? When we talk a out the use of writing in a classroom, it is worth clarifying which purpose it is eing used for as there are many in a school setting e.g. to assess understanding, to practise grammar and voca ulary, to control or settle children etc. ! am particularly interested in writing as a form of communication and feel that this function of writing is often neglected in classrooms. There may e good reasons for this ut ! want to argue that if we neglect communicative writing, we are missing a great opportunity for language development. "ome people refer to writing as the #inderella among the $ macro skills, reflecting the fact that it often does not figure very prominently in classrooms. %ichael &ince expressed one fairly common view of writing when he wrote recently '())$* $+ that no ody seems to like writing. ,earners say it is difficult and oring, or that they make too many mistakes or that they simply dont know what to write. "o what are the reasons for the negative perceptions of writing- "ome of the main reasons may e as follows* .. Writing is a complex skill to ac/uire, even for ,. speakers and is not 0ust picked up naturally like speaking. 1s &ygotsky pointed out, writing is a second order skill. Written language represents spoken words which stand for things or o 0ects in the environment. While initially childrens first attempts at writing may e encoding of what they say, eventually they will need to e a le to move directly from meaning or message to written form. Writing is much more than speech written down. (. 2ounger children may not have fully mastered the physical control needed to put marks on paper which makes writing a very tedious and la orious activity, when even transcri ing one sentence may take them a very long time. 3. Writing tends to take time to develop and so progress is slow, particularly in 4, contexts. #hildren may make numerous mistakes which can dishearten teachers and pupils, particularly where there is a heavy emphasis on accuracy. $. Where the curriculum is heavily influenced y end of primary school exams, the types of writing can e very formal and unimaginative with little concern for tasks and topics which interest children and give them real or imaginative reasons for ting 5. %any primary school6age children in oth 4oreign ,anguage '4,+ and "econd ,anguage '",+ contexts have no real reasons for writing in 7nglish. Ke !uestions !s writing a neglected skill What are the perceptions a out writing in 7nglish in your context- !s it negatively perceived What are your learners attitudes to writing in the ,( -

"ationale for #ncluding Writing in the YL curriculum

1n important reason for including writing in the 2, curriculum is that it is a powerful way of developing childrens language. 4irstly, communicative writing ena les children to experiment with and test out hypotheses a out their language which they can then receive feed ack on e.g. in one diary entry, a child referring to throat ache 'pro a ly meaning sore throat +. "econdly, as 8atherine 9erera '.:;$+ points out, writing for a particular purpose creates needs for particular types of lexis and syntax, particular ways of organi<ing the message. 4or example, stories create the need for children to use the past tense, to signal a se/uence of events through markers, to provide links etween parts of the text through using reference devices. "o writing provides a meaningful context for practising a range of lexis and syntax. Thirdly, it raises childrens awareness a out language so, for example, they egin to notice word oundaries when they see words written down. 1s their writing develops, they may e encouraged to revise their texts which forces them to pay attention to language and notice aspects of it which some current research '"kehan .::;; "wain .::5+ suggests may e an important prere/uisite for particular language aspects to e processed and incorporated into the learners underlying system. 4ourthly, if children are encouraged and supported to plan and revise their texts, then this will contri ute to their metacognitive development, their a ility to take greater control over their writing. 1part from development of the language, a strong additional reason for including writing is that children can feel very motivated y eing a le to write in a 4, or ",. They may feel very proud of their achievement in eing a le to write in another language, like older si lings and adults. This feeling may e strongly influenced, in some cultures y parents who place a high value on literacy. 4inally, children can gain a great deal of intrinsic en0oyment and pleasure from writing when they are given interesting reasons for writing and audiences to write to and when they can achieve some success at their level. Ke !uestions 1re there other important reasons for teaching writing in your context What, in your view, is the most important reason for developing writing skills. $aried %onte&ts for Teaching Writing "ome of you may find it hard to reconcile some aspects of the rationale ! have given a ove with the realities of your teaching situation which raises the issue of context. #ontexts for learning determine how much importance is given to writing, what and how it is taught and how much time is spent on it. #ontexts for T72, vary widely on a continuum from* ac/uisition6poor foreign language classrooms with .6( hours of 7nglish a week, through limited type of ilingual or #,!, type programmes as we currently find in 7urope, to immersion contexts like #anada and su mersion contexts like the =.8 or 1ustralia where minority language children are studying alongside ,. speakers and are surrounded y the ,(. !n typical 4, state school contexts e.g. &ietnam, Taiwan, writing is often relegated to a kind of support use where it primarily functions as a way of getting children to practise grammar and voca ulary, as a means of assessing children or of settling them i.e. a form of class control. The goals for writing are usually very limited. !n the private language sector, however, some institutes who are not ound y the national sylla us often provide some opportunities for developing childrens communicative writing a ilities. The 4, contexts a ove provide a stark contrast to 7", situations like 8enya, "outh 1frica, >hutan, and the %aldives where children are learning all their curriculum su 0ects through the medium of 7nglish. !n such situations, writing is a critical skill

for immediate school success as examinations are usually conducted through pen and paper tests which include the a ility to e a le to write various curriculum genres e.g reports, procedures, instructions etc. Writing skills may also e needed for future 0o s in such countries where 7nglish plays a ma0or role in society. There are, of course, many other contexts etween these two extremes e.g. some form of limited #,!, type teaching where writing may play a more important role than in a type 74, classroom. ?ther varia les which are significant for writing and help to create complexity in the overall picture include whether childrens ,. uses a roman script, whether the childrens ,. is relatively close to 7nglish e.g. 4rench, "panish , whether childrens ,. has a different script from 7nglish e.g. Hindi, 1ra ic, #hinese, whether children are ecoming literate in the ,. and 7nglish simultaneously or whether children are already literate in their ,. or a national language' which may e different from their ,.+. Ke !uestions How does your teaching context affect the way writing is perceived and taught How much writing is done and of what type 1re children in your teaching context learning to write in more than one script simultaneously - How does this influence their attempts to learn to write in 7nglish- @oes it delay their progress- How does it affect the wayyou teach What de'elo(s in children)s *riting? !n considering how childrens writing develops in the 4,A,(, it is important to reflect the multi6dimensional nature of writing. 1 written text, at one and the same time, represents a linguistic product, produced for a particular purpose and audience within a particular social context, which has involved a num er of processes in its creation. "o there is a need to consider development along a num er of different products and process dimensions. @evelopment involves change. !t is not a smooth linear process ut is messy and characteri<ed y fits and starts and often doing things worse efore getting etter. 9articularly in 4, contexts writing can take a long time to develop ecause of limited opportunities to practise. The points elow are mainly ased on research into ,. development acked up y some ,( source material. Besearch into childrens writing in 7", or ilingual settings is far more limited ut more plentiful than research into 4, writing which is very scarce. 'see references at end+ Some Dimensions of Writing De'elo(ment +",D-%T Mechanical +unctuation: learning how to use asic punctuation e.g. commas, full stops, /uestion mark apostrophe, capital letter with greater accuracy. Whereas use of capital letters, /uestion marks and speech marks are relatively easy for children to ac/uire, use of commas and full stops may take longer for children to ac/uire as they are more complex and re/uire an understanding of syntactic units.'#a<den et al 1985) S(elling: initially children literate in their ,. may have difficulties with spelling ecause of sound differences etween their ,. and 7nglish which may influence spelling. They need to ecome aware of these differences and how the sounds are represented orthographically in 7nglish. 2oung children ecoming iliterate may move through some of the stages

suggested y Centry '.:;.+ for ,. children in which early strategies include the use of letter names, semi phonetic or phonetic strategies where children reali<e that sounds in words can e represented y letters e.g. monstur and finally moving to more visual or orthographic strategies and awareness of common stringsA patterns '>uckwalter D ,o ())(+. .and*riting: this involves the co6ordination of fine muscle movements in co6ordinated patterns with visual monitoring and continues to develop through childhood ',as<lo D >airstow /uoted in %eadows .::3+. #hildren need to develop increased control and fluency and to improve flow need to learn to write in larger units than letters. 1t early stages, the slow rate of writing can affect childrens a ility to remem er what they wanted to say.

Linguistic !ncrease in ,ength of text ,inguistic complexity e.g. com ining information through use of su ordinate clauses, use of co6ordination with andA ut; more complex ad0ectival phrases e.g. the tall man with the red hat ; use of varied tenses . ,exis* lexical variation 6increase in num er of different words used; increase in variety and range of voca ulary not 0ust asic level lexis ut more specific terms e.g. walk / run/skip rather than 0ust go, armchair rather than chair , parrot rather than ird, %ore use of superordinate terms e.g. urniture! animals! ood . =se of high interest words; speciali<ed voca ulary in su 0ects areas like science e.g. stomach "s tummy. Creater confidence and accuracy over time in using morphological features e.g. ed endings, plural endings, ing endings; possessive s Interpersonal Audience Awareness* this develops gradually and depends on experience of writing for real audiences e.g. !n stories, some children egin to use a range of evaluative and stylistic devices to create effect e.g. use of special characters ' demons! ghosts +, use of direct speech, repetition for effect, ad0ectival phrases, contrast., evaluative ad0ectives e.g. good! sad#$ %oon &'''a) # taking account of status and relationship to reader in choice of language e.g. use of formal salutation and ending in letter to headmaster e.g. Dear %r/%rs (! T/0T-1L @evelopment in the use of grammatical reference e.g. use of pronouns 'he/she/they + and the to indicate second mention of the sentence topic. =se of lexical links to create cohesion e.g. use of synonyms' ri"er )water +, antonyms ' sad) happy ,+ superordinate 6hyponym ' ood )meat + @evelopment and awareness of text structure e.g. of story moving from simple action se/uences or recounts to more complex stories which contain elements of goal directed ehaviour, involving cause and effect. Crowing awareness of the structure of other genres e.g. instructions, report

+",%/SS 1ccessing !deas* ,earning how to get access to ideas for writing rather than relying on prompts or help from teacher !nternal 9lanning* children gradually learn how to distinguish etween a plan and an actual draft and egin to develop more complex internal representations of text and the a ility to hold a plan constant in the head

across more than one draft. 2ounger children had pro lems retaining story plans when asked to produce another draft ' %oon ()))a+ Bevising* children gradually extend the range of things they , if they do any revision limit it to cosmetic changes and do not revise spontaneously; they need to ecome aware of other aspects of text to consider when revising e.g. ideas, organi<ationA structure, style @eveloping strategies for managing the writing process* learning how to cope with the many demands on them and how to reduce demands; knowing what to do when they get stuck with a word etc

Ke !uestions What changes do you notice in childrens writing over time To what extent does the teaching processA approach taken y the teacher affect what develops in writing What are the implications of what we know a out writing development for assessing childrens writing#nfluences on children)s *riting The development of childrens writing is shaped and influenced y many factors, oth internal and external. Civen the complexity of writing, motivation or interest is a key factor in getting children to write in the first place and then sustaining the effort which is clearly important if children are to make progress. !n 4, contexts, this may e even more critical as there is no o vious need to learn to write eyond the very asics. #losely linked to a childs own motivation are teacher and parental interest and enthusiasm which can have a huge impact on childrens own interest in writing. Teachers eliefs a out writing will influence the way they teach e.g. if they elieve that accuracy and neatness are paramount in writing, then this tend to e reflected in what children pay most attention. "ocio6cultural factors may influence what type of writing is done in school ' e.g. school genres like letters, instructions, reports vs more imaginative types of writing +, how they regard writing and also what they choose to write a out e.g. ights with hi tech guns and aeroplanes "s e"eryday e"ents in a "illage. The influence of the ,. is also often evident in what children write which confirms the active nature of childrens learning as we see in this diary extract from an .. year old %alaysian oy where he has used many local words for words he perhaps does not know in 7nglish e.g. . . . Dear Diary I went to school because kem motivasi .At kem I played station game and then I pray magrib after that I go to cantin than I go to dewan for Malam Kebudayaan. I sang song one two three and I make a paper dress up I make dress tarzan I shought 000000000 Aizuddin (year 3) (In Moon, J 2000b) 1though this is sometimes viewed negatively as interference, currently we are more likely to view it as a resource or support in the early stages of language learning as illustrated y early attempts to write in the ",A4, '7delsky .:;(, ,asaga aster D @oi< ())3, %oon ())) +. However, though children with languages related to 7nglish e.g. 4rench, "panish, can make greater use of their ,. through cognates,

the alpha etic system and related syntax, this can also create challenges as learners may over6generali<e and simply not notice more su tle differences etween languages. There is some evidence that older children may make greater use of their ,. due to their more developed analytical a ilities. Ke 2uestions3#ssues How important are the influences mentioned a ove in your teaching context - How do they affect writing What other important influences have you noticed on your childrens writing- 'e.g. !T, gender+ Difficulties children face in *riting The work of the writer has een likened to that of an air traffic controller in terms of how much information it re/uires the writer to handle at any one time '>ereiter and "cardamalia .:;5+. This can seem overwhelming if we think of the task for children as it re/uires the a ility to use a large num er of interdependent skills, for example, the physical production of text i.e. handwriting which also involves spelling, punctuation, the need to find ideas relevant to purpose and then shape them into a piece of discourse which is appropriate to its reader, using appropriate and accurate language and the need to manage the process of producing the piece of discourse. ?f course, children do not necessarily attend to all these things and they find ways of coping y simply ignoring what they cant manage. >ereiter and "cardamalia '.:;5+ who have done extensive research on ,. childrens development in writing suggest that the main pro lems which children face are as follows* How to keep going When speaking, children have a face to face audience and human interest to sustain and motivate them to talk. They are involved in taking turns and know that when their turn comes they have to say something and they are prompted and supported y adults when they get stuck. However in writing, these external and human prompts are taken away and children often find it difficult to sustain writing. Access to Memory- What to write about #onversation provides many prompts to memory ut in writing such prompts are a sent and children often find it very difficult to know what to write a out or to e a le to get access to their memory to retrieve ideas. The use of rainstorming and other devices e.g. pictures can e helpful in ena ling children to access their memory store and stimulating ideas.

Access to Discourse/ Genre tructure 7xperienced writers typically draw on their underlying knowledge of genre structure when writing e.g. knowledge of how a formal letter or report is structured and often do so explicitly in planning and organi<ing their writing. 1lthough children have usually developed some experience of story genre, they do not always seem to e a le to draw directly on this knowledge when writing. There is also the additional pro lem that they may have little experience of other genres in the primary classroom. Goal Directed !lanning 2ounger children 'up to .)+ seem to make little distinction etween planning and generating text and when asked to plan simply rehearses orally what they want to

say. >y early adolescence, students are a le to create a plan for a text ut they tend to e entirely focused on what to say rather than on how to convince or create some effect in their reader. 2ounger children are a le to do some simple planning ut need assistance. "e#ision =nassisted children tend to limit revision to surface changes and do not tend to think a out larger pro lems related to the reader6related concerns or organi<ation of ideas. 7xperienced, more mature writers ' 4lower D Hayes /uoted in >ereiter D "cardamalia .:;E + may operate on a variety of mental representations of text in their heads at different levels of a straction while children Fs mental representations are all at a low level of a straction and are mostly concerned with operations related to language or content. This makes it difficult for them to overcome the saliency of existing text when they are revising and may explain why, for example, their changes tend to e at the local level, involving minor additions of information rather than transforming or recasting the sentence. '>ereiter and "cardamalia .:;E+. The first two pro lems a ove apply to most children writing in an ,( ut the last three are pro a ly more applica le to 7", than 4, children as the former will develop their writing to a much higher level of proficiency. 1n additional pro lem for all second language children is access to language. Whereas most ,. children can draw on a wide repertoire of linguistic structures and lexis y the time they are E or ;, a child writing in hisAher ,( will have a much narrower range to exploit and it may e far less automatic therefore re/uiring more cognitive effort to retrieve. "ome people may argue that children need a threshold level of competence in the ,( efore they are encouraged to create written text. Ke !uestions 1re the pro lems mentioned a ove ones which you have noticed in your own teaching context What other challengesA pro lems do your learners face in writing in 7nglish 1re there differences etween 4, and ", teaching contexts in terms of the type of pro lems learners face @o you agree that children need a asic threshold of 7nglish competence efore they are asked to compose simple written texts1((roaches to Teaching Writing in the T/YL classroom 1pproaches to teaching ,( writing tend to e influenced y developments in ,. ut changes are slow to happen. %ore traditional approaches to teaching writing tend to e concerned with the end product or form and with grammatical correctness. There are many classrooms around the world where a focus on product is still strongly evident. However in recent years, more communicative approaches have had some influence on the type of writing tasks teachers use, leading to the use of more interesting and purposeful tasks e.g. writing a description of someone in your class so that others can guess. !n the last few decades, there has also een interest in process 6oriented approaches to teaching writing used with young ,. learners through the work of people like @onald Craves in the "tates and the Gational Writing 9ro0ect in the =.8. !n general, process ased approaches appear to e characteri<ed y a concern for helping learners to understand and engage in the writing process as writers, for giving them an authorial voice and an encouragement to express their own meanings, to raise their awareness a out the different constraints that normally

concern a writer e.g. the ideas and their organi<ation, the reader, making appropriate choices for a situation etc. The focus is on the process of producing a text which involves various stages of writing and rewriting. However, there is little empirical evidence availa le of how emphasis on process assist ,( childrens language and writing development or how far such ideas have filtered through into 2, classrooms. %ore recently, there has een considera le interest in genre6 ased approaches, arising out of the influential work done in 1ustralia on developing ,. childrens formal awareness of different genre and ena ling them to write within different genres '#ope D 8alanti< .::3+. This approach has een /uite influential and one off6shoot has een the use of writing frames which contain the main elements of the structure of the genre as prompts e.g. *ow +o,! -ou will need,.! .irst,..! /econdH.. 4inally, the increasing use of computers and !T has een a great oon for young learners, making revising less of a chore and helping to motivate less willing writers. !n addition, the increase in access to and use of email y younger learners has also created the possi ility of writing to real audiences. However, it is not clear how extensively computers are availa le in primary classrooms or what impact the use of computers has had on second language writing development. Ke !uestions3 #ssues How do you teach writing in your context- What are the main influences on your approach @o you feel that some approaches are more suita le for certain type of learners e.g. genre I oriented approaches for 7", learners What do you think should e the main characteristics of an approach, appropriate for young 4,A", learners.o* do ou res(ond to children)s *riting? When we receive a text like the following from a child* ?nce upon a time there was a ird 'called+ in ' a y+ night ird was slept on the tree This morning irdJs. are fly in the sky in evening irdJs are sitting ?n the theeirdJs are eat 1ndthe dog eating irdone day dog came to the treethe irdJs are flythe irdJs are no sitting on the tree '>hutanese 7", learners 'dyad+ 2ear ( 6;6: year old+ it can e viewed in two ways* it can e seen as an imperfect product containing many errors or it can e viewed as a window onto the childs writing development, full of clues as to what the child already knows a out writing and can do, and a out what he Ashe still needs to learn. 4or example, the child a ove knows how stories egin and she seems to know that stories are written in the past tense. "ometimes the text may need to e viewed in the first way when there is a need to assess or evaluate the childs work ut it would e unfortunate if a childs work was always viewed in this way. How do we respond to childrens writing and what do we do when presented with a text like the one a ove- ! prefer to use this roader term respond which includes the idea of marking or correction ut indicates that there are many ways of

approaching a childs writing. The way we respond depends on our eliefs a out writing and our purpose which may e to praise or value a childs efforts, to help a child to revise hisAher work, to show interest in hisAher ideas, to identify strengths and weaknesses or to assess. Ke 2uestions3 issues What are the different ways you respond to childrens writing in your context 1re you re/uired to assess childrens writing formally in your context- !f yes, how do you assess writing When assessing or evaluating childrens work, what aspects of writing do you think should e focused on @oes marking or correcting childrens work help their writing to improve- !n what ways How does the way you respond affect childrens attitudes and motivationSome final thoughts Writing can e a powerful way of assisting childrens T72, development if it is appropriately staged and supported. 1ll T72, children are capa le of producing some form of simple text, even if it is 0ust a caption or la el for a picture or artefact and this achievement can e very motivating for children. However, childrens writing develops gradually so it is important for us to take a long term view and not to e disheartened y what can seem slow progress at times. We can assist the pace of development y providing sufficient opportunities for writing, developing childrens awareness of different aspects of writing and providing appropriately tailored support. "eferences >ereiter, #. D "cardamalia,%. .:;E The 0sychology o 1ritten 2omposition . Hillsdale* G.K.* ,awrence 7rl aum 1ssociates >ereiter, # D "cardamalia, % .:;5 #hildrens @ifficulties in learning to compose in C. Wells, D K Gicholls ' 7ds+ #a<den, #. #ordeiro, 9 D C!aco e, %.7. .:;5 "pontaneous and "cientific #oncepts* 2oung #hildrens learning of 9unctuation. !n Wells, C D Gicholls, K '7ds+ 3anguage and 3earning4 5n 6nternational 0erspecti"e . ,ewes* 4almer 9ress #ope, > D 8alanti<, %. .::3 The 0ower o 3iteracy. 5 7enre 5pproach to +eaching 1riting. ,ondon* the 4almer 9ress 7delsky, #. .:;( J Writing in a >ilingual programme * The relation of ,. and ,( texts J +8/93 :uarterly .L * (..6((; ,asaga aster, @ D @oi<, 1. ())3. %aturational #onstraints on 4oreign6,anguage Written 9roduction. !n CarciMa %ayo, %.9. D CarciMa ,ecum erri, %.,. '7ds++ 5ge and the 5c;uisition o 8nglish as a .oreign 3anguage. #levedon* %ultilingual %atters ' .3L6.L)+ %eadows, ". .::3. +he 2hild as +hinker. +he de"elopment and ac;uisition o 2ognition in 2hildhood . ,ondon* Boutledge %oon, K. ()))a. 7xploring the effects of @rafting on >hutanese childrens ,( story writing in 2ear 3 and $ of schooling in K. %oon. D %. Gikolov, % '7ds+ <esearch into +eaching 8nglish to -oung 3earners. 6nternational 0erspecti"es. 9Ncs* =niversity 9ress. %oon, K. ())) . How #hildrens Writing @evelops in the ,(* !mplications for Teaching and 1ssessment. !n #harles %ifsud D C %allia '7ds+ 1ays and %easures4 +eaching and 5ssessing -oung 3earners o 8nglish as a .oreign 3anguage! %alta* World 1cademic. 9erera, 8 .:;$. 2hildrens <eading and 1riting . ?xford* >asil >lackwell

"kehan, 9. .::; 1 2ogniti"e 5pproach to 3anguage +eaching * ?xford* ?xford =niversity 9ress "wain, % .::5 Three functions of ?utput in second language learning !n #ook, C D "eidlhofer, > '7ds + 0rinciple and 0ractice in 5pplied 3inguistics . ?xford* ?xford =niversity 9ress &ince, %. ())$ Writing Bevalued. !n 8nglish +eaching 0ro essional . !ssue ())$ ,ther "ele'ant "eferences "mith, K D 7lley, W .::; *ow 2hildren 3earn to 1rite * ,ondon* 9aul #hapman ' useful review of various approaches to writing in ,.+ "amway, 8 @. .::3. J This is hard , isnJt it - J #hildren 7valuating Writing J +8/93 :uarterly &ol (EA( *(336(5; "engupta, ". '.::;+. 4rom Text Bevision to Text !mprovement* 1 "tory of "econdary "chool #omposition. <832 =ournal. (:, ..)6.33 =r<ua, #. '.:;E+. 2ou stopped too "oon J* "econd ,anguage #hildren #omposing and Bevising !n +8/93 :uarterly. (., (E:63)$

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