NAME OF TRAINEE:

LSA NUMBER: Four

WHICH SKILL OR SYSTEM? Skill: Writing

NAME OF ASSIGNMENT: Process Writing Approach for Pre-Intermediate Learners

DATE OF LESSON:

LEVEL OF CLASS: Pre-Intermediate

TIME AND DURATION OF LESSON: 10.00-11.00 am (1 hour)

EXPECTED NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 12

1 The Learners

1.1 The class

The students mostly come from a Spanish background, and they are studying

general English. This is a class that is being taught for the first time, as they had

another group of CELTA teachers for the past three weeks. This class seems to

have a group of mixed abilities, but they are quite keen and motivated to improve

their level of proficiency in English. Their level of proficiency is ranging around pre

intermediate, where some of them (Celia) have a better command and others

(Antonia) are at a disadvantage.

1.2 Individual learners

Ana is a secretary and hopes she can get a job as a quality control officer. She is

originally from the Ecuador and has lived in Granollers for the past 11 years. She

started learning English in University, but she is motivated to improve her

proficiency level to land a better job. She identifies her strengths in speaking and

grammar, but finds writing to be challenging to her.

Elena is a chef and uses English regularly for work and research. Her first language

is Catalan. She communicates well and is strong in reading and speaking; while

she describes that her main weakness is in vocabulary and has a difficulty recalling

verb forms.

2 Aims

2.1 Main aimsBy the end of this lesson the students will...

ALL students would be better able to: Plan and draft text(s) describing places (where they come from). Use mind maps to generate ideas around the topic.

MOST of the students will be given a chance to: Develop their writing fluency.

SOME students will be better able to: Select ideas from a draft to use in a final text. Write a description of their cities/villages using adjective-noun collocations.

2.2 Secondary aims Recycle the lexical set of nouns and adjectives that describes places.

3 Lesson fitAt the beginning of this week, this group had a task based lesson on “describing people” where they were able to write and speak about their peers. Therefore, I decided on describing places which I think will benefit them at this time of the course. In my experience and after consulting some writing books (Ready to write and Reason to write) I figured out that descriptive writing is helpful at this part of the course, as this kind of descriptive writing involves the use of present simple, verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun collocation which were presented more than once during this course.

Also this group of learners will be presented with a pronunciation lesson with word and sentence, and I believe it is necessary to have some variety which allows different approaches; especially this is their last week in this course.

4 Assumptions

- The awareness of the importance of planning before writing was not raised in previous lessons, so they are introduced to understanding the planning procedures.

- Through the diagnostic session, at the beginning of this course, it was noticed that these students were trained on writing skills during first language acquisition, so they are expected to be familiar with the progress they achieve and be more encouraged to use the process writing approach more often.

- This group is mostly seniors. In the needs analysis questionnaire, they all highlighted their need of “how to write”. Therefore they are expected to do more effort in learning the process writing approach, simply because this approach addresses their autonomy and creativity. - They are expected to get involved and enthusiastic about the topic (tourist attractions in Spain/ Catalonia). As they like to talk about their cities/villages more than any other places.

- Students are expected to use chunks more than words, as they are able to use collocations such as (e.g. big city/ hot weather/ interesting places etc).This will enhance their writing and develop their abilities. Therefore they are expected to be well motivated. - Since most of the students are visual learners, I will use more visuals during the lesson (videos, slides, and pictures). Also, there are four kinaesthetic learners; I am planning to include some hands on activities.

5 Anticipated problems and solutionsa. Anticipated Issues - session’s aims and learning outcomes:

Issue 1

Students may have difficulty in understanding the video, as in this stage (pre-

intermediate) their listening skills are the weakest compared to other skills.

Appropriate Solution

I will use an authentic video, but I will edit it to match the learners’ level. I can

edit the speed of the video to make it a bit easier for them. In addition, a full

understanding of the text is not necessary and vocabulary will not be tackled

as a class. The learners will be given a chance to discuss and plan in pairs after

listening. The use of visuals at this stage is meant to ensure students’

understanding of the topic and to encourage them to start drafting their ideas

on paper.

Issue 2

There may be grammatical issues (present simple) encountered in the

production of text and the learners may want to focus on this.

Appropriate Solution

Since the focus of this lesson is the process itself more than any other linguistic

features, it does not have a grammar focus so these can be tackled discretely

and individually if need be. In my experience, this approach reduces the stress

on learners and enables them to write more comfortably with much focus on

meaning.

b. Anticipated Issues - learners and the learning context

Issue 3

This group is a multi-level class to some extent, as there are two false

beginners at least. Sometimes these two false beginner pair together and this

negatively affects their performance.

Appropriate Solution

Be careful with groupings that the two false beginners do not fall into one

group. Balance the pairings. I will act as a manager and circulate, encouraging

and facilitating students’ work.

Issue 4

Some learners may start to write sentences rather than ideas at the pre-

writing/planning brainstorming stage.

Appropriate Solution

I will give clear instructions, use instruction check questions to check

instructions, monitor and guide individual learners.

Issue 5

Learners may not pay much attention to the planning stage, and accept it as a

warmer. Having poor planning will lead to poor drafting. Therefore, students

may ruin the whole process by bad planning.

Appropriate Solution

This is due to a lack of understanding of the process of writing; the teacher

needs to give clear instructions and check instructions well. Also the use visual

at the beginning of the lesson will engage students. The conclusion of the

lesson may include a description of the process to give learners a chance to

realise the importance of different stages.

Issue 6

Some learners may face problems shifting from group work (planning) to

individual work (drafting); especially slow learners. I expect the false beginners

at least to struggle drafting even after planning.

Appropriate Solution

Make sure that planning is good enough to lead them to drafting and ask them

to work in groups so they can assist one another. Use visuals during

brainstorming and make sure that students are engaged. Use concept check

questions, and monitor their planning with some assistance to those slow

learners. Teacher should make sure that they are using their mind map to

transfer ideas into sentences.

Issue 7

The learners may have issues writing at the drafting stage or at the final stage

of producing a final version, where they may want to focus on grammar,

spelling and punctuation.

Appropriate Solution

There is an editing stage which will involve their peers where they are asked to

check content. Use Instruction Check Questions to highlight that it is the

content that is the focus and not the accuracy at this stage. The learners may

find this difficult to accept but stress this at all the relevant stages.

c. Anticipated Issues - equipment, materials and resources

Issue 8

The projector might not work. Also I might have a problem with speakers or

video quality.

Appropriate solution

Test PC and connections. Print out handouts and use whiteboard as part of

the contingency plan.

6 Materials

A Video (The Original video is retrieved form you tube). White board Hand outs Over-head projector

7 Language analysisThe session follows the process approach to writing and follows the path of;

Planning – the purpose of the planning stage in process writing is to assist lower

level learners to generate, select and organise ideas; various techniques such as

brainstorming, mind-mapping etc can be used to plan before writing about their

villages/cities.

In this instance I will involve them writing their ideas in a mind map and working

collaboratively to list a range of ideas. I will check understanding via monitoring

and observing the ideas that the learners list and eliciting ideas and guiding if

necessary.

Drafting: Here the learners select and transfer their initial ideas into text.

Learners can refer back to planning and edit their ideas if needed.

This will involve the learners using the ideas from the planning stage to write their

sentences to describe their villages/cities. This will be in the form of sentences; as

they produce the text the teacher will ask them to check if they have included

ideas from their plan. Students will be asked to work individually in this stage.

Editing: After the first draft the learners now work on improving the quality of

their work.

This will include the learners working together to peer assess and focus on the

content of their work. Learners will be asked to peer assess and edit each other’s

work for content.

Final version: here they will use the work completed at editing stage to produce a

more coherent final piece of text.

The quality of work/content and the range of ideas within the text will be the

understanding the learner displays.

The stages above are not linear but cyclical and there can be movement

backwards and forth as needed by the writer to improve text but for the purpose

of this session it will by and large follow the linear process with little deviation.

The learners will produce text and they will use the present simple, and

adjectives, but the grammar of the sentences, or spelling is not the focus and will

not be tackled within the session; it is the process to develop their ideas that is

the focus and to take the learners away from a grammar focus; a process

approach rather than a product approach.

Present Simple

The learners will be using;

S + V1

My village has a population of 2000 people.

Adjectives

There will be use of adjectives as part of the sentence.

It is a big city.

Adjective-noun collocations :

As noted by (Hill, 2000) collocations are of prime importance in expanding low-

level learners’ mental lexicons, so students will be given a chance to use some

familiar adjective-noun collocations:

- Adjective-noun collocations can be used to describe places (e.g.

“Interesting places, a small village, cold weather etc” )

8 CommentaryIn my experience, I taught a lot of pre-intermediate classes. Writing was always a challenge to the learners and not a preferable lesson for them. Most learners look at writing as a tool that supports their learning of grammar and vocabulary (Harmer 2000). This group of learners are mostly retirees and they do not have any actual daily or occasional need to writing in English. During this course, I’ve noticed that they depend on fixed language structures to write and speak, Therefore, they are like my Saudi students in using writing as to learn grammar and vocabulary and not as a skill in its’ own right.

As (Hedge 2000) noted that writing is not just putting ideas on paper, it is one of human communication methods. It is the result of employing strategies to manage the composing process, which is one of gradually developing a text. Most of this group, if not all, have not received the necessary support to build up writing skills in their first language. For example they write complete sentences when they were asked to think about a topic or plan for a discussion or a composition.

Referring to the above mentioned facts, I chose writing skill for this lesson, and since the recent years witnessed a lot of research on writing and writing methods (Thornbury 2006), many teaching approaches were presented. I decided on the process writing approach for this group of pre-intermediate learners. With Saudi pre-intermediate learners, I have noticed that they benefit from the process writing approach more than any other approach. I think the same will be correct with my current Spanish students. Hedge (2000) noted that this approach tries to provide useful support for students, and this support will vary according to their age, backgrounds and needs. I think this will fit this certain group of learners, as they have an interest to think about individualized issues such as names, lifestyle and cities.

I decided on a descriptive paragraph writing for many reasons; first as they would be interested in describing relatively individualized topics of interest. In addition, learning the stages of writing rather than studying certain written product encourages their creativity and enhances their autonomy.

I also chose the topic of describing places, and narrowed the scope to writing about where they come from to maximize personalization chances and raise their enthusiasm.

Since process writing was described by Harmer (2000)as a linear process (stages follow each other in a line) at some stages or levels and a recursive process (students can move between stages as per necessity) in general. For this group of learners, and as pre-intermediate learners, I decided to go for the linear more than the recursive process. I wouldn’t mind getting back to any stage if needed, but I believe this lesson will go for a linear more than a recursive process.

In order to manage the composing process, students need to go through the following stages:

A warmer/ Lead in:

At this stage students are introduced to the topic and their interest is to be raised.

Pre-writing/ Planning:

It is a crucial stage, as students work collaboratively on brainstorming and calling out ideas. They don’t write sentences this stage, they only decide on ideas.

Drafting:

Students filter their ideas and write sentences. Students learn how to work on the quality of their writing and eliminate irrelevant and unnecessary information. They also learn how to write for a purpose and audience.

Editing:

At this stage students get a chance to look at each others’ work for content, and this highlights that it is not all about checking for grammar and content is equally important.

Reviewing:

Students review their second draft and notice the progress happened; starting by planning till drafting. Also they can review grammar and punctuation mistakes at this stage.

Word Count: 634

9 Lesson Outline

Stage Name/ Stage Aim Interaction/Time

ProceduralDetail

Lead in/To get them involved into the topic. To activate students schemata (Talking about travelling)Bring learners’ attention to description

Lockstep

SS-T-SS

7 mins

Teacher asks students “Do you like travelling?”, and encourages Ss to give different answers. T responds to their answers.T asks students to imagine that they won 10000 Euros, and asks them to talk about where to go, and what to see there?T collects answers and highlights the important chunks (e.g. love to see museums, go diving in the sea, visit interesting places, and speak languages).

Teacher acts as a manager by giving instructions and encouraging learners to contribute. Teacher is also a contributor here, by eliciting ideas or forward suggestions.

Setting up the context/ Generate interest in the topic, and

encourage students to start planning.

Lockstep

Ss-T-SSSs-Ss8 mins

Teacher tells students that she wants them to travel to her hometown “Cairo”, so she will show them a video for Cairo.Ss watch the video to collect information about Cairo.In pairs Ss decide if they want to visit Cairo or not? Discuss why?Feedback from students and teacher collects information and write ideas on the board “e.g. location, population, interesting places... etc”.

Teacher’s role here is to facilitate, monitor and manage.Plan:Learners brainstorm to generate ideas of descriptions.

Introduction of a mind map as a technique for learners to plan ideas for writing.

Direct students attention to plan with a purpose and audience in

T-Ss-TSs-Ss10 mins

T asks Ss to think about visiting a tourist city like Barcelona, and if they want their classmates to come and visit this city.Do you love this city you chose? YesDo you want your classmates to visit it? YesT draws a circle on the board and Ss to complete a mind map.CQs: Do you write these ideas for yourself? No Do you write it for your friends? Yes Why? To make them visit my city.Ss share ideas and fill in a separate mind map in pairs about their tourist city. (handout 3)CQs Do you work individually or in pairs? in pairs

mind Do we share ideas? Yes Do we have the same plan and the same city/? yes Will you write complete sentences? No Will you write only one or two words or long sentences? Yes “ only ideas”Teacher monitors, collects mistakes and gives whole-class feedback by highlighting students planning mistakes (e.g. writing sentences not ideas, lack of ideas).

Teacher role at this stage is a manager by giving instructions, facilitator by observing and assisting learners, and Assessor by collecting and correcting mistakes.

DraftDrafting to use their ideas to form descriptions.To use the planning stage to inform their writing at the draft stage.

DraftLearners individually to select appropriate information from their draft.Here this will highlight that not all information in the draft need be included in the final version

T-Ss-TSs-SsSs-T10 mins

Teacher writes on the board:“ Morgan 07 Safa.” Asks students if they can explain this.T collects predictions and give a different explanation to get students understand that he understands it easily as she writes it.CQs Did I write this to you? No Did I write it to myself? Yes Was it easy for you to understand? No Did I think about you when I wrote this sentence? NoTeacher asks students to get ready to write about their city.CQs Do you write this for yourself? No Do you write it for your friends? Yes Do you write sentences like the one on the board? No, complete sentences.Teacher asks students to use their plans to write as many sentences as they can about their city in their groups. Just to transfer their ideas into sentences with no worries about grammar.Ss are asked to pick six important ideas to write about considering the reader of their paragraph (friends)CQs: Do you write in groups or alone? In groups Do you worry about spelling? No Do you worry about grammar? NO, only meaning. Do you write about everything in your plan? Not everything, only six things.Teacher monitors to make sure that students are using their plans, and to make sure they are writing collaboratively.

Teacher’s role here is a source of information by explaining the importance of clear ideas, and manger by giving instructions, and guiding students through the whole stage. Also she monitors and assists when necessary.

Editing Content:Peer evaluation of the composition.Highlights that there is a stage after writing that involves checking content.

T-SsSs-Ss

10 mins

T asks students:Do you think this is your final copy? NoCan you publish it in the class? No, it needs some changes.

T Highlights the issue of checking meaning only.CQs Do you correct spelling or grammar? No Do you correct information to make meaning understood? Yes

T provides Ss with a content check list to check their draft according to it. (handout 1)In groups students evaluate their compositions. Each group evaluates another’s writing.T monitors editing and collect notes for whole-class feedback.

Teacher’s role here is a facilitator.Editing Language:

Error correction awareness raising.Highlight grammar, spelling and punctuation errors for final draft.

Final PieceLearners complete their final piece.

T-SsSs-T-Ss15 mins

T provides Ss with Handout 2 to raise students awareness to language editing. Each Ss is given a handout to work on their own. T then asks Ss to compare answers in pairs and shows them the answer key on the board.T highlights on the importance of highlighting all the errors in the text, so it could be ready for publishing.T asks Ss to switch their writing again with another group to correct the errors they have in grammar, spelling and punctuation.T directs Ss to write their final draft according to the feedback they got from the other groups.

T monitors Ss progress and provides final feedback for their work on the different stages of writing.

Teacher’s role here is a facilitator.

Bibliography:

Blanchard K. & Root C. (1994). Ready to Write. Addison Wesley Publishing Company.

Hill j. (2000) Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical Approach. Hampshire: Heinle Cengage Learning.

Miller J. L. & Cohen R. F. (2001). Reason to Write. Oxford University Press.

Video about Cairo city tour. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvuX8n-EPl4&playnext=1&list=PL2AAD258FDB7BD1EA .on 09/08/2011.

10 Appendices

Handout 1

Content Editing List:

Does your paragraph have a title? Yes/No

Is your title interesting? Yes/No

Are all your ideas important? Yes/No

Do you need to add any ideas? Yes/No

Do you need to delete any ideas? Yes/No

Teacher’s Own Materials

Handout 2

Teacher’s Own Materials

Handout 3Mind Map

Visit the city of

Teacher’s Own Materials