Building confidence and enthusiasm ilding the writing abit ‘Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” from ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll Building confidence and enthusiasm Instant writing Collaborative writing Writing to each other What to do with ‘habit-building’ writing Although some students are always happy to have a go at writing in English, others can be less keen. This unwillingness may derive from anxieties they have about their handwriting, their spelling, or theit ability to construct sentences and paragraphs. And if these insecurities are reinforced because they are unable to complete writing tasks successfully, then the students’ attitude to writing is likely to become more and more negative. The students reluctance to write can also be because they rarely write even in their own language, and so the activity feels alien. Another powerful disincentive is the fear that they have ‘nothing to say’ — a common response of many students when asked to write. Finally, writing just does not intesest some students; such people seem to be unwilling to invest the time and effort that they think a writing task demands. With students like this who lack familiarity or confidence with writing (or indeed enthusiasm for it) we need to spend some time building the writing habit ~ that is making students feel comfortable as writers in English and so gaining their willing participation in more creative or extended activities. This will involve choosing the right kinds of activity — with appropriate levels of challenge — and providing them with enough language and information to allow them to complete writing tasks successflly, Choosing writing tasks and activities It is important that we choose writing activities which have a chance of appealing to our students ~ and which have, if possible, some relevance for them. Writing fairy stories might appeal to children but could fail to inspire @ group of university students (though that is not necessarily the case, of course, as we shall see on page 79).How to Teach Writing If we are lucky we will have a good idea of not only what kind of writing students are likely to have to do in English in the future, but also what kind of subjects and tasks they will enjoy — or have enjoyed in the past. This will help us choose writing tasks either because students need them or because they are likely to be motivated by them because the tasks are engaging in themselves. ‘An engaging writing task is one that involves students not just intellectually but emotionally as well; it amuses them, intrigues them, or makes them feel good. When students are ‘switched on’ by engaging tasks there is a good chance that some of their doubts abour writing will disappear. ‘What engages people may be different for different students, but clearly the stimulus we provide (to encourage them to write) will make a difference. Music, for example, can be used to awaken the students’ creativity, especially if they respond particularly well to auditory input. Pictures can have the same effect for those who are stimulated by visual input. Having students write jointly on the board or swap papers around caters for those who respond to kinaesthetic stimulation (to movement and physical activity). Writing tasks can be initiated and conducted in a number of different ways, in other words, and if we are to build the writing habit in the greatest number of our students we need to be aware of the variety of tastes and interests they have. Except in the most goal-focused ESP classes, students are likely to respond best to a wide variety of tasks, topics, and genres over a period of time. Though we may want to revisit a writing genre — so that students can apply what they learned first time round second try — we will want to give students the widest range possible. is as important in writing tasks and the activities that go with them as it is for other areas of language learning such as speaking, listening, and reading, What students need As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, there are many reasons why students may not be confident or willing writers. In order to counteract these potential problems we have to identify what our students need if they are to have a reasonable chance of success: + Information & task information — students need to have the necessary information to complete the task. This means that they need to understand clearly what we want them to do and they need, also, to be absolutely clear about any of the topic detail that we give them, If we ask them to respond to an invitation, for example (see page 36), they need to have understood the details of the invitation, who they are writing to, and what it is they are trying to achieve. If we ask them to write a poem, they need to have a clear understanding of the topic(s) they will be dealing with. If they are involved in a collaborative writing activity they need to- know what they are writing about, who writes what, and how the writing sequence is going to progress.5 © Building the writing habit + Language ~ if students need specific language to complete a writing task we need to give it to them (or help them to find it). This may involve offering them phrases, parts of sentences, or words. Of course there are times when we just get students to write ‘without thinking’, to provoke their use of all and any of the language they know. Buc where a task depends on certain written formulae it would be pointless not to offer these to the students. + Ideas — teachers need to be able to suggest ideas to help students when they get stuck. For some this may be just a word or two. For others we may need to dictate a half sentence or even something more substantial, One of the skills of a good writing teacher is to be able to throw out suggestions without crowding out the individual students with too much oppressive detail. In order to do this we have to be aware of which students need more or less help and stimulation, especially where students are working on their own rather than collaboratively (see below). + Patterns & schemes ~ one way of helping students to write, even when they may think they do not have many ideas, is to give them a pattern or a scheme to follow, In ‘worked-on’ writing this will frequently happen when students first study a writing genre and then create their examples of the same genre (e.g. ‘an advertisement’, ‘a postcard’, ‘a curriculum vitae’, etc.). Even with more instant writing, however, the students’ lives will be made much easier if there is a pattern or scheme to follow. The poetry activities we will look at in this chapter bear this out, as do some of the collaborative writing procedures. In these cases students are given a frame to write in and, while this may make the task less creatively free, it does offer the writers support. It is often easier to write when constrained than it is when there is nothing in front of you except for a blank piece of paper or a blank screen. When students are involved in the kind of process writing or genre-based construction we talked about in the first two chapters of this book, the identification of suitable topics and tasks and an analysis of what they need to complete the tasks successfully are both absolutely vital. They are important, too, for tasks which aim to build the writing habit ~ that is tasks whose principal aim is to have students writing fluently and enthusiastically, often with more spontancity and less actual preparation than in process and genre approaches. Two such areas of habit building are instant writing and collaborative writing. ‘There are stages in any lesson where students can be asked to write on the spot, without much in the way of preparation or warning; this is instant Because instant writing is not part of a long writing process, it can be used whenever the teacher feels it is appropriate. The tasks may each take only ten or fifteen minutes or be even shorter; but a regular diet of such tasks will boost students’ confidence, if they are appropriate, since each time 63How to Teach Writing they will have something worthwhile and interesting to. show for their efforts, The following activities provide some examples of instant writing, Sentence writing As we have seen, students can be asked to write sentences either as language reinforcement or in preparation for « forthcoming activity. The following activities could also be used for such purposes, but their purpose here is to make reluctant writers feel more comfortable and to remove the problems of those who think they have nothing to say: B o Dictating sentences for completion — a very simple way of getting students to write creatively is to dictate part of a sentence which they then have to complete about themselves, For example, we can dictate the following: “My favourite time of day is ..." And students have to write the morning, or the evening, etc. This can be extended of course. The teacher can’ say: ‘Now write one sentence saying why you have chosen your time of day.’ Just about any incomplete sentence can be used in this way, as the following examples demonstrate: ‘The one thing | would most like to learn is how to ..." | have ever seen is ... ‘One of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me is ... Teachers ean also dictate sentence frames (or write them up on the board). If the topic is ‘animals’, we can say: ‘Although | like ..., I'm not very keen on ...’ Writing sentences - students can be asked to write two or three sentences about a certain topic. For example, suppose students have been working on the topic of ‘hopes and ambitions’, they can write three sentences about how they would like their lives to change in the future. If they are discussing education, they can write sentences about why exams are a good thing or a bad thing. If they have been discussing anti-social behaviour, the teacher can ask them to write three don? sentences (e.g. Don't listen to loud music after eleven o'clock). The weather forecast ~ at the beginning of the day the teacher asks students to write about themselves and their day as if they were writing a weather forecast: ‘What's the “weather” like now? Are you happy or tired, listless or energetic? How are you likely to feel later on, in the afternoon?” Activities like this work extremely well for some students, because they allow them to be creative in an amusing and thought-provoking way,