Use as many words as you can

Controlled Writing

similar to guided writing (not the same though)and serves as foundation for free writing.

Stresses the importance of grammar, syntax and mechanics

Emerge in 1940’s to 1960’s

One of the main proponents of controlled writing is Raimes (1983), which states that, unlike free writing, controlled writing takes place when learners are supplied with “a great deal of the content and/or form

an outline to completea paragraph to manipulate passage to continuemodel to

follow

Silva (1990) added that controlled writing assists in both preventing errors that apparently occur from first language interference and reinforcing proper use ofL2 patterns. Therefore, engaging learners in controlled writing in L2 can be “as an exercise in habit formation [in which the ESL/EFL learner] is simply a manipulator of previously learned language structures”.

A useful tool at all levels of composition teaching. Controlled writing tasks give students focused practice in:

1. Getting words down on paper.2. Concentrating on one or two problems

at a time.

Can fit into a writing curriculum at any level of student ability in these places:

1. Before writing – students practice a grammatical point or syntactic structure within a text and not just as a sentence exercise.

2. After writing – when we determine what problems students may face and assign a guided task to give them practice with the problematic areas.

CONTROLLED COMPOSITION, QUESTION AND ANSWER, GUIDED COMPOSITION, PARALLEL

WRITING, & SENTENCE COMBINING

Example:Everyday Kate wakes up at 6.She prepares breakfast for the whole family before preparing herself to go to work.She drives to her workplace which is twenty minutes away. She takes a coffee break at 10 a.m.

Instruction: Describe Kate’s routine last Monday, and change the report. Start with “Last Monday, Alice woke up at 6.”

I deserve an explanation. I deserve an

acceptable and reasonable

reason!

Change to passive

QUESTION AND ANSWERThis format allows students a little more freedom in structuring sentences.Students are not given actual text they are going to write, but rather are given a series of questions, the answers to which form the text. Carefully constructed questions will produce a coherent text.

Example:James daily morning routine6:00 wake up6:05 shower6:10 put on school uniform6:20 eat breakfast6:35: put on shoes6:40 say goodbye to Mom and walk to school

Instruction:By answering the following questions with complete sentences, write a paragraph that describes Abu’s daily morning routine.1. When does Abu wake up?2. What does he do first?3. What does he do next?4. What does he do then?5. When does he eat his breakfast?6. What does he do after breakfast?7. What does he do before walking to school?

Guided CompositionIt is an extension of controlled composition.Less controlled than the previous ones – provides only some of the content and form of the sentences students will use.Finished products will be similar but not exactly alike.Students are given a first sentence, a last sentence, an outline to fill out, a series of questions to respond to, or information to include in their writing. Students can discuss, make notes, share findings and plan strategies before they begin to write.

Example:Students are shown a picture. They are to write 3 paragraphs about the picture. a. Begin by telling the reader that the picture shows__________. Then go on

and describe the ________ of the _________.b. Start your second paragraph by saying something about the ________ in the

picture. Describe ________ in detail. c. Start your third paragraph with “Other than that, the ______________ is also

__________.”. Go on and describe the rest of the characteristics of __________.

It is the combining of “base” or “kernel” sentences into one longer compound or complex sentences.Researchers found that sentence-combining exercises improve students’ sentence structure, length of sentence, and sentence variety.A good way of introducing new language structures without the complicated explanations and jargons. Content is given – does not provide students opportunity to formulate ideas, but does provide plenty of practice with syntactic structures that are more common in writing than in speech.Gives students chance to use grammatical knowledge they have to make choices about structures.

SENTENCE COMBINING

Example:She needed to move faster.She woke up late this morning.

Combine the sentences to form a new sentences using the correct conjunction(s).

I want to get a high salary.I ask for a high percentage of the movie’s profit.

The freest kind of controlled writing.

Students read and study a passage and then write their own on a similar theme – use as a guide the vocabulary, sentence structure, cohesive device and the organization of the model passage. Thus, parallel writing can best be described as rewriting with different basic information, which again is provided.

PARALLEL WRITING

Okay. Please close the front

gate behind you when you leave.I’m

leavingfor swimming practice, Mom. See you later.

Rewrite the dialogue into a

narrative.

A practical process of reinforcing grammar, vocabulary and syntax in context (Raimes, 1983).

When the students write the passages, conventions of written English (indentation, punctuation, connecting words, spelling etc.) are used.

Can be used with different levels.

PROS OF CONTROLLED WRITING

Provide learners with ample writing practice using correct grammar forms compared to free writing.Allows learners to monitor their own progress within the parameters provided. Can be prepared and corrected quickly – reduces burden on the teacher.Helps to systematically and gradually cover different teaching points (Paulston, 1972).

Communicating Ideas Through Paragraphs

Helen is a bilingual secretary. She has a good job with a large corporation. Last year she worked in Los Angelos, but this year she is working in her company’s Washington office. Her time in California was fun; she enjoyed going to the beach often. She has many good memories of that year. She likes the change to Washington, D.C., though. There is a lot to do in D.C.: theaters, concerts, shopping.

Helen is looking for a desk lamp today. She loves to read in the evening, but her apartment doesn’t have enough lights. There is a large department store near her office. This store is a good place to start, she thinks. Helen looks at the pictures of credit cards in the store window. Luckily, she can use the card in her wallet; payday isn’t until Friday.

Exercise 1: Ask the students to rewrite the story using the first person point of view. So, the first sentence of the story will be: I am a bilingual secretary.Exercise 2: Ask the students

to rewrite the story by changing the tense into past tense. So, the first sentence of the story will be: Helen was a bilingual secretary.

Conclusion

Although writing now seen also not only as a product but also a process, it is not inherently wrong to pay attention to the criteria in which the students will be graded. A list of criteria that is usually included is content, organization, vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical considerations. (Brown, 2001) Based also on the micro skills in writing stated by Brown, these controlled writing exercises can be very useful for beginner writer in order to learn from the model and to practice how to combine sentences and to think in chronological order, before they move to the further stage, which is to produce their own ideas in form of writing. As it is sated by Sokolik in Nunan (2003) that writing is not a talent and cannot be taught like many people believe, instead writing is a teachable and learnable skill. Here, the instructor can play an important role in making this skill an enjoyable one for the students.

References

Cambridge English. Retrieved from http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2015/06/controlled-guided-writing-tasks-beginners-part-1/

http://www.slideshare.net/willys007/approaches-to-student-writingControlled Writing: An Effective Traditional Practice

for Developing ELLs’ Composition. Retrieved fromhttp://fll.univ biskra.dz/images/pdf_revue/revue14_15/nemouchi%20abdel%20hak%202.pdf