Discussion task #2: Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges...

Discussion task #2: Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals?
                                   
I have two groups of 11-year-old children who really enjoy communicative activities in class. They are always looking for new challenges and opportunities to put into practice what they learn. To cater for their needs, I created a project named “My dear friend” in which stds were supposed to write notes to each other to get personal information and then, write a text. At first sight, they were reluctant to take part in the activity, firstly because it was novelty, and secondly because they are used to practicing language with their classmates. So, to encourage them, I showed them my writing portfolio which has all the pieces of writing I have made since I have started studying English.( From when I was 10 to CPE). To my surprise, they were encouraged by seeing all the comments from my teachers and they noticed that making mistakes is part of the learning process.
To sum it up, I believe my showing them that writing is a process, and that it is possible to have fun and learn simultaneously, I actively encouraged them to write, which nowadays is restricted to their mobile deviced. Moreover, students are used to writing to a teacher, but in this situation, they wrote to a real audience and they got real responses. They were over the moon! WE sometimes need to be nudged in the right direction. I am pretty sure I nudged them towards the right path of making writing meaningful.

Comments

  1. Carolina Brenes BurgosApril 29, 2016 at 7:36 AM

    I truly believe that showing them your writing portfolio opened a door for them to value it more. Not only did they learn that the teacher isn't perfect, but also they're likely to feel more comfortable when making mistakes. Very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Danilo RibeiroApril 29, 2016 at 7:39 AM

    Yes, it is true! Thanks for your comment, Carolina Brenes Burgos

    ReplyDelete
  3. Damien HerlihyMay 1, 2016 at 1:19 AM

    I love portfolios. It's cool that you can show that to your students Danilo. With the questions about testing, I think affective teaching would use portfolios to show markers of achievement to parents and students as they progress in English.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Juan UribeMay 3, 2016 at 2:23 PM

    Danilo,

    You have certainly inspired your students by showing them your portfolio. Having a portfolio allows your students to have concrete evidence of their progress and talking about their path is very empowering.

    Having the possibility of writing notes that get answered made writing more interactive and similar to the writing they make in their everyday lives.

    Some teachers have even been very successful having their students tweet each other and giving responses to questions using their phones during classes.

    We must also always ask yourselves how and how much we have been writing before we propose writing to our students.

    Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TASK 2: Getting ready for storytelling.

TASK 2: Getting ready for storytelling. I have a group of 12 kids ranging from 7 to 8 years old. They are already familiarized with the characters of the book (Tina the tortoise, monkey, own, duck and rabbit). The leading character is Tina the tortoise. This is a pre-teaching activity and I bring realia objects to the classroom like: football, a coat, socks, a cap and a mug. I ask kids where Tina is: where is Tina? ( I act like I'm looking for her..) Oh look! Tina is in her shell! Tina come out and play! ( sound of a negative answer) Help me kids! Repeat: Tina come out and play! ( sound of a negative answer again). Let's try again but louder! Tina, come out and play! Tina answers: No, no! It's cold outside! I say: Tina let's swim! ( I make the gesture) Tina answers: no, no! It' cold outside! I let children have ideas showing the objects inside the box! Let's play football! Children keep trying to convince her (Put on a coat! Put on a cap! Put on your socks!). A...
Read more

Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when...

Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals? Imagine asking a ten-year old student to write about the impact of the economic collapse in the USA. This student will not have much to say and he/she will feel frustrated. Now imagine asking a 17-year-old student to write about his/her favorite toy. This student will not feel excited to write about this because it is not part of his/her reality anymore. Of course, these are extreme examples, but we do have to take into consideration many aspects such as students's age, background, reality and interests when designing writing activities. Besides relating to students lives and realities writing acitivities should also cover three moments: pre writing, writing and post writing. In the first stage, we should activate students memories, feelings and senses providing them with the ...
Read more

Discussion task #2

Discussion task #2 Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals? 1) I try to personalize writing as much as possible. I usually start talking about myself to get students at ease and more open to share their own feelings and ideas towards the writing topic. Then I adapt the task to allow students to express themselves in a comfortable and confident way. 2) Finding the right audience is definitely a key issue in all writing tasks but it's even more important with young learners as they need to feel their writing is authentic and will be read by real audience. That's why I try to do peer check/correction before I read it myself. Whenever possible, I try to have students write to each other and reply back. As a different version of it, we created at our center (A wise owl) which students write to and get personalized replies...
Read more