Teaching writing as a type of speech activity in FL

5. A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. A mind map is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank landscape page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those.

Mind maps can be drawn by hand, either as “rough notes” during a lecture, meeting or planning session, for example, or as higher quality pictures when more time is available.

Mind maps are considered to be a type of spider diagram. A similar concept in the 1970s was “idea sun bursting”.

Buzan suggests the following guidelines for creating mind maps:

Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors.

Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map.

Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.

Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line.

The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The lines become thinner as they radiate out from the center.

Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support.

Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also for encoding or grouping.

Develop your own personal style of mind mapping.

Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map.

Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy or outlines to embrace your branches.

Effectiveness - Cunningham conducted a user study in which 80% of the students thought “mindmapping helped them understand concepts and ideas in science”.Other studies also report positive effects through the use of mind maps. Farrand, Hussain, and Hennessy (2002) found that spider diagrams (similar to concept maps) had limited, but significant, impact on memory recall in undergraduate students (a 10% increase over baseline for a 600-word text only) as compared to preferred study methods (a 6% increase over baseline). This improvement was only robust after a week for those in the diagram group and there was a significant decrease in motivation compared to the subjects' preferred methods of note taking. A meta study about concept mapping concluded that concept mapping is more effective than “reading text passages, attending lectures, and participating in class discussions”. The same study also concluded that concept mapping is slightly more effective “than other constructive activities such as writing summaries and outlines”. In addition, they concluded that low-ability students may benefit more from mind mapping than high-ability students [9, 57].

Features of Mind Maps - Beel and Langer conducted a comprehensive analysis of the content of mind maps. They analysed 19,379 mind maps from 11,179 users of the mind mapping applications SciPlore MindMapping (aka Docear) and Mind Meister. Results include that average users create only a few mind maps (mean=2.7), average mind maps are rather small (31 nodes) with each node containing about 3 words (median). However, there were exceptions. One user created more than 200 mind maps, the largest mind map consisted of more than 50,000 nodes and the largest node contained ~7500 words. The study also showed that between different mind mapping applications (Docearvs MindMeister) significant differences exist related to how users create mind maps.

Automatic Creating of Mind Maps - There have been some attempts to create mind maps automatically. Brucks and Schommer created mind maps automatically from full-text streams. Rothenberger et al. extracted the main story of a text and presented it as mind map. And there is a patent about automatically creating sub-topics in mind maps.

Pen and Paper vs Computer - There are two studies that analyze whether electronic mind mapping or pen based mind mapping is more effective.

It is very important that students experiment with each of these techniques in order to see how each one works to help generate text and shape a possible approach to a topic. The purpose, after all, of acquiring invention strategies is for students to feel that they have a variety of ways to begin an assigned writing task and that they do not always have to begin at the beginning and work through an evolving draft sequentially until they reach the end. Spack underscores the importance of having students practice a variety of strategies since she observed that none of her EFL students utilized invention strategies presented in the course textbook which they had read about but not practiced. She further notes that students may also devise their own invention strategies once they have learned the value of systematic exploration of a topic. But we must keep in mind the fact, as

Reid asserts, that for some students, the strategy of choice may be to produce a text in a linear fashion, possibly generated by an outline prepared prior to writing a full first draft. For some people, she points out, brainstorming can be more difficult than, and not as successful as, outlining.

Using Readings in the Writing Class [10, 205]. The use of readings in the writing class is another topic that has generated a great deal of debate among those searching for methodologies which promote improvement in writing proficiency. Before awareness of how to address the writing process in class and of the importance to students of actually doing writing in class, the primary activity of so- called writing classes was actually reading. As mentioned earlier, the traditional paradigm for L1 writing classes was rooted in having students read and discuss texts which they would then go on to write about. When the process approach was first introduced, many writing instructors eliminated the use of readers, and used only texts written by the students themselves as the reading material for the course. The dominant philosophy seemed to be that one learns to write by writing, and that perhaps reading had very little to do with the acquisition of writing. ESL teachers following the developments in L1 writing classrooms also went through a period in which reading played almost no role in the writing classroom. But the pendulum has begun to swing in the opposite direction, and while readings have been reintroduced into the so-called modern process writing class-- both LI and L2--the nature of the readings and their function is viewed quite differently.

On one level, readings serve some very practical purposes in the writing class, particularly for ESL writers who have less fluency in the language. At the very least, readings provide models of what English texts look like, and even if not used for the purpose of imitation where students are asked to produce an English text to match the style of the model text, readings provide input which helps students develop awareness of English prose style. Krashen makes the case even stronger by claiming, “It is reading that gives the writer the 'feel' for the look and texture of reader-based prose.”

In class, close reading exercises can be done to draw students' attention to particular stylistic choices, grammatical features, methods of development, and so on. Such exercises help to raise student awareness of the choices writers make and the consequences of those choices for the achievement of their communicative goals. Spack points out, “An active exploration of the writer/reader interaction can lead students to realize and internalize the idea that what they write becomes another person's reading and must therefore anticipate a reader's needs and meet a reader's expectations.” On another level, writing tasks assigned by many professors require students to do a great deal of reading in order to synthesize and analyze academic material in particular content areas. Thus, the EFL writing class can incorporate lessons which assist students in preparing academic writing assignments by using readings as a basis to practice such skills as summarizing, paraphrasing, interpreting, and synthesizing concepts.

Finally, many EFL students are not highly skilled readers, having had limited opportunities to read extensively in English; it is highly unlikely that anyone who is a non-proficient reader can develop into a highly proficient writer. For that reason alone, EFL teachers are well advised to include a reading component of one nature or another in their classes.

Writing Assignments. As the object of any writing class is to have students work on their writing, the topics students write about must be carefully designed, sequenced, and structured so that the teacher knows exactly what the learning goal of each paper is and so that the student gains something by working on the assignment. There are many factors to consider in selecting topics for student writing, but even if not consciously aware of it, the teacher will be primarily influenced by a particular philosophy about teaching writing which he or she (or the textbook being followed) adheres to and which significantly shapes the approach to topic design. In fact, even when topics are chosen in a random and ad hoc fashion, the teacher will probably select an assignment which seems appropriate on the basis of a felt inner sense of appropriateness, reflecting perhaps unconsciously how the teacher views the goals of the course, the ways in which writers learn, and what he or she values as good writing. For example, if the teacher wants the students to focus on standard organizational patterns common to English writing, it is usually because the teacher values essays which follow discernible patterns and/or believes that training students to recognize and produce those patterns is an important goal of the course. If the teacher believes that writers learn best by writing about topics of their own choosing and that text to be valued is that which reveals the most about the persona of the writer, then the assignments in that teacher's writing class will be presented to achieve those goals [11, 180].

One very common approach to topic generation may be referred to as the “rhetorical patterns” approach, in which EFL students are exposed to a variety of types of discourse structure common to English prose. This is done by presenting examples of professional writing or samples of prose written by textbook writers for the purposes of illustrating a particular pattern that forms the focus of a lesson or sequence of lessons. Some textbooks also offer edited or unedited essays written by EFL students as samples of the various prose patterns. Then, typical writing assignments which derive from this philosophy ask students to imitate the structural pattern of the prose model--be it a genuine piece of professional or student writing or an artificially constructed one--using different content.

These sorts of assignments will usually be presented so that the student has to either create or plug in particular content according toaspecified manner of presentation. Examples of the “create” assignments are those which specify an organizational structure, such as comparison and contrast, but do not specify any content. Examples of the “plug in” assignments are those which specify an organizational structure, such as “cause and effect”, and also specify the content area, such as “drugs and crime.” The student's task in the former case is to identify two items which can be compared and contrasted and which lend themselves to presentation in that manner. The student's task in the latter case is to write about drugs and crime in such a way as to show the cause-and-effect relationship. Other patterns commonly included in the organizational approach to specifying writing assignments are chronological order, exemplification or illustration, classification, analysis, problem solution, and definition--all commonly referred to as patterns of exposition. Regardless of what else takes place in the class that shows concern for the process ofwriting, the “products” which result from this philosophy of assigning topics will invariably be judged primarily on how closely they follow discernible and traditional formats of the specified rhetorical pattern.

There is ample evidence that "real- world" writing does not get produced in this fashion, which is one of the major criticisms leveled at textbooks which encourage these approaches. Not only do real writing tasks not begin from a particular form which merely lacks content to be complete, but content itself usually does not get generated without the writer's first having a purpose for writing. Taylor also points out that “a major result of a writing program which focuses primarily on form is an insufficient emphasis on content which would create the opportunity for students to experience the process of discovering meaning and then of struggling to give form through revision.”

A completely different philosophy of teaching leads to viewing writing as a vehicle of self-revelation and self-discovery, and assignments are presented to students in which they must reflect on and analyze their own personal experiences. Some examples would be asking students to write about their experiences as second language learners or to reflect on a lesson learned in childhood. The content in either case would arise from their own personal biographies. This type of assignment has the potential of allowing the writer to feel invested in his or her work, not usually the case with the rhetorical pattern approach. Perhaps more centrally, the value ofwriting is seen in its role as a tool of discovery of both meaning and purpose. Proponents of the discovery approach claim that the writing skills learned in practicing personal writing will transfer to the skills required to produce academic papers.

Regardless of the underlying philosophy of teaching which motivates the types of assignments presented to students, teachers must also make a number of other decisions about assignments. They must decide where the writing is to be produced: in class or at home. When students are writing in class, teachers are often uncertain of what they themselves should be doing while the students are writing. Students also generally feel pressured by the limited amount of time available. When students write at home, teachers may be concerned that the student might receive outside input from another writer or from textual material, rendering the student's text unrepresentative of his/her own writing. For some students, writing at home will be completed in even less time than writing produced in class. One way to resolve this is that some assignments should be considered "timed" writing, written in a given time framework, submitted, and responded to as final products, while other writing assignments can be prepared over a span of several class periods (either in class or at home) and feedback provided to assist in the revision process.

In fact, another decision teachers must make concerns the number of drafts for any given text that they want students to produce. Given the immense value to the student writer of learning to revise text and to work through a series of drafts before considering a paper “finished”, new writing topics should not be assigned before the student has had a chance to work through a cycle of drafts on a prior assignment. If the teacher's goal is to foster student improvement, then providing a multiplicity of writing assignments on different topics (whether they be of the rhetorical pattern type or prompted by a more open- ended approach) will not allow students sufficient time to devote to working on writing in progress. That is, students working on a second or third draft of a given topic which is scheduled to be submitted the following week should not simultaneously be working on a first draft of yet another topic [12, 209]. But as Reid cautions us against dogmatism in presenting approaches to how students generate texts, Harris cautions us against dogmatism in applying an inflexible call for revision. In her research, Harris finds that writers range along a continuum from what she calls “one- to multi-drafters”, and not everyone benefits from being asked to produce multiple revisions since the preferred strategy for some successful writers is to produce a single, polished draft. She notes, in fact, that “studies of revision do not provide the conclusive picture that we need in order to assert that we should continue coaxing our students into writing multiple drafts” because both efficient and inefficient writers are to be found who favor one or the other of these approaches to writing.

A final consideration regarding topic design is one of essay length, for in cases where teachers don't specify length, students often want to know how long their papers should be. Many ESL students are concerned with doing the bare minimum and will invariably submit very short papers; others may produce too much text for the teacher to find time to respond to, or for the student to be able to process and benefit from the extensive feedback that the teacher might need to provide on a lengthy but highly problematic text. One must bear in mind the need for a relationship between what the topic calls for and the length of paper produced. For example, to ask students to write 250 words on an encyclopedic topic is to ensure superficiality of treatment; conversely, to ask them to produce a lengthy paper on a narrowly focused topic is to invite padding and digressions. Also, what a teacher believes a student will learn from preparing a particular assignment should not be out of proportion to the amount of time the student will need to invest in preparing it.

Finally, if one believes that students best learn to write by writing, then the design of writing tasks is perhaps the key component of curriculum design. It is in the engagement with, and the completion of, writing tasks that students will be most directly immersed inthe development of their writing skills; thus, a great deal of thought must go into choosing such tasks.

Goal Setting. “Responding to student writing has the general goal of fostering student improvement.” While this may seem to be stating the obvious, teachers need to develop/adopt responding methodologies which can foster improvement; they need to know how to measure or recognize improvement when it occurs. Although the teaching of first language writing has come a long way since most response took the form of written criticism by the teacher detailing what the student had done wrong on a paper, and teaching EFL has ceased to be seen as a vehicle for monitoring student acquisition of grammar, remains no easy answer to the question of what type of response will facilitate improved student mastery of writing. In reviewing dozens of research studies investigating various methodologies of responding, Hillocks concluded, “The results of all these studies strongly suggest that teacher comment has little impact on student writing.” Therefore, in setting goals, teachers should focus on implementing a variety of response types and on training students to maximize the insights of prior feedback on writing occasions.

Shaping Feedback. Regardless of whatever repertoire of strategies teachers develop to provide feedback on student papers, students must also be trained to use the feedback in ways that will improve their writing--be it on the next draft of a particular paper or on another assignment. Without such training, it is quite likely that students will either ignore feedback or fail to use it constructively. In fact, research studies to date have shown a number of discouraging findings. Research on how L1 students process written response from teachers has indicated that ;

1) sometimes students fail to read the written comments on their papers, caring only about the grade1;

2)sometimes they do not understand or indeed misinterpret the written comments, and find themselves unable to make appropriate changes in future drafts;

3) sometimes they use comments to psych out a particular teacher's personal agenda, only hoping “to make the teacher happy” in the future;

4) sometimes they become hostile at the teacher's appropriation of their text

In research on student response to comments in an L2 environment, Leki found that students expressed a lack of interest in teacher reaction to the content of their papers, and instead indicated a desire to have every error marked on their papers. Cohen found that students had a very limited repertoire of strategies for processing feedback, and as such, Cohen and Cavalcanti conclude, “Clear teacher- student agreements on feedback procedures and student training in strategies for handling feedback could lead to more productive and enjoyable composition writing in the classroom.” [13, 167]

To address some of these issues, one step is to assure that the feedback on a particular piece of writing addresses that text in the context of how it was produced and with a clear agenda for what the student is expected to do with any feedback. In a process-oriented produce more than one draft of an essay, reflecting the steps of producing real-world texts. Thus, feedback on a first draft should most appropriately provide guidelines and suggestions for how to produce a second draft which would show improvement at the level of content and organization. However, Zamel (1985, p. 81) reported that studies provide “overwhelming evidence that teachers attend to surface-level features in what should otherwise be considered first drafts,” completely ignoring the philosophy of process which they claim to espouse. In examining the responding behaviors of 15 EFL teachers by reviewing their written comments on portfolios of student papers, Zamel goes on to identify a host of “incongruous types of comments” in which “the major revisions suggested and the interlinear responses are at odds with one another." This use of "mixed signals” helps explain why many students find it difficult to decipher teacher commentary. Why, for example, should the student pay attention to problems in the sequence of tenses in a particular paragraph if a marginal or end note indicates that the whole paragraph is irrelevant to the development of the paper?

As with other issues we have discussed, the question of the teacher's philosophy is a key determinant of his or her approach to commenting. Zamel notes of her 15 ESL teacher subjects “the teachers overwhelmingly view themselves as language teachers rather than writing teachers; they attend primarily to surface-level features of writing and seem to read and react to a text as a series of separate sentences or even clauses, rather than as a whole unit of discourse.” Unless the teacher adopts the stance of a writing teacher, he or she will be unable to provide feedback appropriate to that role.

Forms of Feedback. Up to now we have been discussing feedback that is provided in writing by the teacher on various drafts of a student paper, a fairly traditional and undoubtedly time-consuming method, even for those teachers who do not respond to every draft as a finished product. But there are other ways for students to receive feedback on their writing which can and should be considered in structuring a writing course. Writing teachers who view themselves as judges or repositories of certain truths about effectiveness in writing will want, of course, to be in charge of providing feedback to their students, believingthatsuch feedback can play a vital role in the improvement of student writing. Those who view themselves as coaches or editorial advisors will also want to provide feedback, though not necessarily in the same way. Teachers should bear in mind that feedback can beoral as well as written, and they should consider the value of individual conferences on student papers and/or the use of tape cassettes as two additional ways to structure teacher feedback. From another point oi view, most writing teachers realize that they have many students in one class and they might also be teaching two or more writing classes, so the teacher has a very limited amount of time to provide feedback to any one student. Teachers whose philosophies embrace the value of collaborative learning1 therefore turn to the other students in the class to assist in the feedback process. Other students in the writing class can be taughtto provide valuable feedback in the form of peer response, which serves to sharpen their critical skills in analyzing written work as well as to increase their ability to analyze their own drafts critically.

Oral Teacher Feedback. Because of potential communication problems, EFL students in a writing class need to have individual conferences with their teacher even more than native-speaking students do. Conferences of about 15 minutes seem to work best, and can provide the teacher an opportunity to directly question the student about intended messages which are often difficultto decipher by simply reading a working draft. Further, conferences allow the teacher to uncover potential misunderstandings the student might have about prior written feedback or issues in writing that have been discussed in class. Another benefit is that students can usually learn more in the one-to- one exchange than they can when attempting to decipher teacher-written commentary on their own.

Some teachers provide all their feedback orally by asking students to submit a cassette tape with each draft. This method probably works best when the teacher silently reads a student's paper and makes comments directly into the tape recorder while marking some accompanying numbers or symbols on the student's text. For EFL students, this method has the advantage of providing more extensive feedback than that likely to be made in writing, as well as allowing the student to replay the tape as many times as necessary to understand and benefit from the teacher's comments. Once the teacher has learned to use this technique, it probably takes less time to complete taped remarks about a paper than it would to put them in writing.

Peer Response. Because the use of peer response is a key component of classrooms teaching writing as a process in the LI environment, many ESL teachers embraced the idea of having students read and/ or listen to each other's papers for the purpose of providing feedback and input to each other as well as helping each other gain a sense of audience. But embracing a philosophy without understanding how to translate it to the L2 environment can often lead to rather disappointing results. That is, simply putting students together in groups of four or five, each with rough draft in hand, and then having each student in turn read his or her paper aloud, followed by having the other members of the group react to the strengths and weaknesses of the paper in the role of interested audience member, indicating further reader needs that have not been addressed, is not a format likely to work with even the most sophisticated class of ESL students. Because ESL students lack the language competence of native speakers, who can often react intuitively to their classmates' papers, peer responding in the ESL classroom must be modeled, taught, and controlled in order for it to be a valuable activity [14, 194].

One way to control peer response is for teachers to provide a short list of directed questions which students address as they read their own or other students' papers. A first exercise of this type can involve giving students a short checklist of attributes to look for in their own papers, such as to check for a particular grammatical feature that might have been discussed in class (e.g., subject- verb agreement) or to check to assure that no irrelevancies have been included. The checklist is submitted with the paper as a way for the student to assume responsibility for reading over his or her paper carefully. Next, students can be trained to read and respond to other students' papers by reviewing an essay written by a student in a previous class and working through, as a class, a peer editing sheet that asks a few specific questions that would elicit both a general reaction to the paper and suggestions for improvement. As the students gain practice in reading and analyzing each other's papers and their awareness of the conventions of writing increases, the questions can be made more complex and varied. Some typical questions to begin with might include these: “What is the main purpose of this paper?” “What have you found particularly effective in the paper?” “Do you think the writer has followed through on what the paper set out to do?” Some peer guideline sheets for students who have more practice in the technique might include the following steps: “Find at least three places in the essay where you can think of questions that have not been answered by the writer. Write those questions in the margins as areas for the writer to answer in the next draft.” “Read only the introduction and then write what you predict the rest of the essay will discuss. Then read the essay and compare your predictions with the actual content of the essay.”[15,180]

In order to maximize the value of the feedback to the EFL student, responses should be written, incidentally providing practice in the valuable skill of text analysis for the student commentator. These written responses can be given to the student writer with or without the anonymity of the student reader preserved or used as the basis for oral discussion between reader(s) and writer. The teacher might also want to read the student feedback sheets to assess the analytical skills of the student readers.

Error Correction. Regardless of what agenda the writing teacher sets and the number of drafts that students produce, the papers that EFL students write are likely to exhibit problems in language control. However, it is very important that the teacher not be swayed by the presence or numbers of these problems into turning a writing course into a grammar course. Rather, error must be dealt with at an appropriate stage of the composing process, and is perhaps best considered part of the final editing phase. The role of editing, when seen as distinct from rewriting, is essentially working to eliminate grammatical problems and stylistic infelicities; this type of editing is certainly essential to the production of good prose, but it should be an activity that is probably best attended to when a text is considered complete in terms of having been shaped by content, organization, attention to the needs of the reader, and a consideration of its purpose. In fact, editing or correcting errors on first drafts can be a counterproductive activity, possibly exacerbating whatever insecurities students might have about their writing and drawing their attention away from the other kinds of revision work that must be attended to. Chenoweth concedes, “It may be hard for teachers to give up their habit of correcting every grammatical mistake,” but also believes grammatical problems should only be dealt with when the meaning the student wants to express has been adequately dealt with.

In addition to deciding when to correcf errors, teacher must also decide who will cor rect the errors, which errors to correct, and how to correct errors. Besides the obvio role the teacher plays as a corrector of errors, the student writer and other students in the class can also be called upon to provide feedback on errors as part of the peer feedbac process. Again, the use of a checklist naming specific grammatical features often helps to focus student attention on areas the teachei feels the student should be able to monitorfoi and self-correct.

The decision whether to address all or selected errors is a complex one and probably depends a great deal on the level of writing the student is capable of producing, However, correcting all of a student's errors is probably rarely called for, unless there are very few errors present in the text. Rather,the teacher should probably concentrate on calling the student's attention to those errors which are considered more serious and/or represent a pattern of errors in that particular student's writing. Traditionally, we take “serious” to mean that which most interferes with communication, soer rors of sentence structure are very important to deal with, while those errors which are unlikely to lead to faulty interpretation or to interfere with the reading process might be seen to be less significant. Unfortunately some errors which are not serious by these standards tend to have an “irritation factor,' and many faculty outside EFL programs, for example, find little tolerance for errors in EFL writing which seem like careless proofreading mistakes to them, most notably mistakes in article usage. Since mastery of the article system is actually a very difficult task, con- I sciousness raising about typical ESL learner problems among non-ESL faculty might be just as important as attempts to improve proficiency in article usage among ESL students.

Finally, the “how” of calling students' attention to the errors they have committed is also a complex issue. Teachers can choose to:

1) point out specific errors using a mark in the margin or an arrow or other symbolic system;

2) correct (or model) specific errors by writing in the corrected form;

3) label specific errors according to the feature they violate (e.g., subject-verb agreement), using either the complete term or a symbol system;

4) indicate the presence of error but not the precise location (e.g., noting that there are problems with word forms);

5) ignore specific errors.

Most teachers use a combination of two or more of the methods mentioned above, depending on what they perceive to be the needs of the student, and studies of acher feedback are inconclusive as to what the best methodology might be. One study of feedback procedures by Robb, Ross and Irortreed, for example, concludes that “the more direct methods of feedback do not tend to produce results commen- ' rate with the amount of effort required of the instructor to draw the student's attention tothesurface error.”

However, another study by Fathman and Whalley involving feedback on content versus feedback on pnmar reports that all students who revived feedback on grammar improved the grammatical accuracy of their revised texts while only some students improved the content of their writing following feedback on ontent. The best approach to feedback on rrors must undoubtedly derive from con- idering the circumstances of the individual udent coupled with the goals of the , course and the stage of the composing process a particular draft reflects.

The most effective techniques and methods of developing writing skills

Creative writing normally refers to the production of texts which have an aesthetic rather than a purely informative, instrumental or pragmatic purpose. Most often, such texts take the form of poems or stories, though they are not confined to these genres (letters, journal entries, blogs, essays, travelogues, etc. can also be more or less creative.) In fact, the line between creative writing and expository writing is not carved in stone. In general, however creative writing texts draw more heavily on intuition, close observation, imagination, and personal memories than expository texts.

One of the chief distinguishing characteristics of creative writing texts is a playful engagement with language, stretching and testing its rules to the limit in a guilt-free atmosphere, where risk is encouraged. Such writing combines cognitive with affective modes of thinking. As the poet, R.S. Thomas once wrote, “Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart.” The playful element in creative writing should not, however be confused with a lax and unregulated use of language. On the contrary, creative writing requires a willing submission on the part of the writer to the `rules' of the sub-genre being undertaken. If you want to write a Limerick, then you have to follow the rules governing limericks. If not, what you produce will be something other than a limerick: obvious, perhaps, but important too. The interesting thing is that the very constraints which the rules impose seem to foster rather than restrict the creativity of the writer. This apparent paradox is explained partly by the deeper processing of thought and language which the rules require. Creative writing aids language development at all levels: grammar, vocabulary, phonology and discourse. It requires learners to manipulate the language in interesting and demanding ways in attempting to express uniquely personal meanings. In doing so, they necessarily engage with the language at a deeper level of processing than with most expository texts.[16, 59]

The gains in grammatical accuracy and range, in the appropriacy and originality of lexical choice, in sensitivity to rhyme, rhythm, stress and intonation, and in the way texts hang together are significant.

As mentioned above, a key characteristic of creative writing is a willingness to play with the language. In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the role of play in language acquisition. In some ways, the sunami of the Communicative Approach has done a disservice to language teaching by its insistence on the purely communicative functions of language. Proponents of `play' point out, rightly, that in L1 acquisition, much of the language encountered by and used by children is in the form of rhythmical chants and rhymes, word games, jokes and the like. Furthermore, such playfulness survives into adulthood, so that many social encounters are characterized by language play (punning, spontaneous jokes, `funny voices', metathesis, and a discourse which is shaped by quasi-poetic repetition2. These are precisely the kinds of things L2 learners are encouraged to do in CW activities. This playful element encourages them to play creatively with the language, and in so doing, to take the risks without which learning cannot take place in any profound sense. As Crystal states, “Reading and writing do not have to be a prison house. Release is possible. And maybe language play can provide the key.”

Much of the teaching we do tends to focus on the left side of the brain, where our logical faculties are said to reside. Creative writing puts the emphasis on the right side of the brain, with a focus on feelings, physical sensations, intuition and musicality. This is a healthy restoration of the balance between logical and intuitive faculties. It also affords scope for learners whose hemisphere dominance or learning-style preferences may not be intellectual or left brain dominant, and who, in the normal process of teaching are therefore at a disadvantage. Perhaps most notable is the dramatic increase in self-confidence and self-esteem which creative writing tends to develop among learners. Learners also tend to discover things for themselves about the language… and about themselves too, thus promoting personal as well as linguistic growth. Inevitably, these gains are reflected in a corresponding growth in positive motivation. Among the conditions for promoting motivation, Dornyei cites:

1. Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere.

2. Promote the development of group cohesiveness.

3. Increase the students' expectation of success in particular tasks and in learning in general.

4. Make learning more stimulating and enjoyable by breaking the monotony of classroom events.

5. Make learning stimulating and enjoyable by increasing the attractiveness of tasks.

6. Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for learners by enlisting them as active task participants.

7. Present and administer tasks in a motivating way.

8. Provide students with regular experiences of success.

9. Build your learners' confidence by providing regular encouragement.

10. Increase student motivation by promoting cooperation among the learners.

11. Increase student motivation by actively promoting learner autonomy.

12. Increase learner satisfaction.

All these conditions are met in a well-run creative writing class. The exponential increase in motivation is certainly supported by my own experience in teaching creative writing. Learners suddenly realize that they can write something in a foreign language that has never been written by anyone else before, and which others find interesting to read. Hence the importance of `publishing' students' work in some form. And they experience not only a pride in their own products but also a joy in the `flow' of the process [17, 287].

Finally, creative writing feeds into more creative reading. It is as if, by getting inside the process of creating the texts, learners come to understand intuitively how such texts function, and this makes similar texts easier to read. Likewise, the development of aesthetic reading skills provides the learner with a better understanding of textual construction, and this feeds into their writing. Teachers, as well as learners, should engage with extensive reading. In the same spirit there are significant benefits to teachers if they participate in creative writing. There is little point in exhorting learners to engage in creative writing unless we do so too. The power of the teacher as model, and as co-writer is inestimable.

Creative writing is one way of keeping teachers' English fresh and vibrant. For much of our professional lives we are in thrall to the controlled language of textbook English and the repeated low level error-laden English of our students. As teachers of language, we surely have a responsibility to keep our primary resource alive and well.

Creative writing seems to have an effect on the writer's level of energy in general. This tends to make teachers who use creative writing more interesting to be around, and this inevitably impacts on their relationships with students.

The experimental stance with regard to writing in general appears to fee back into the teaching of writing. Teachers of creative writing tend also to be better teachers of writing in general.

To achieve good results in writing, some important skills are required to obtain:

1.Teaching Spelling

English spelling is partially conventional. It means that spelling of some words doesn't correspond to their pronunciation. (e.g. silent letters gh'-night, wrong; o', a' differ from the primary phonetic value-do, war) But it similar to Russian spelling too: silent letters т', д'- известный, поздно; unstressed vowels - собака, корова.

Principles in teaching spelling:

a) Conform to one difficulty at a time. (In the early stages written exercises must be based on speech material previously assimilated orally and make familiar to the pupils in written form visually through reading.)

b) The rules for spelling must be taught partially.

c) Phonetic transcription is used simultaneously.

d) Presentation of classified and contrasted homonyms: pain-pane, plain - plane, tale-tail, accompanied with sentences illustrating their use.

Exercises for teaching spelling:

a) Copying - elementary exercise in teaching spelling. Copying from the blackboard or from the textbook. It is introduced from the beginning if the basic course & grounded on the previous reading.

Copying reinforces teaching spelling and sentence structures. Teacher can introduce an element of entertainment to this activity, e.g. copy songs and poems, address and timetable. Copying is meaningful and purposeful (e.g. enumerate the names of furniture in the room, small objects - a telephone, a lamp, etc., put them in alphabetic order).

Tasked copying' causes learners to examine the text and to note particularly certain elements, which contributes to the conscious memorization of the spelling and formation of habits of correct spelling (e.g. underline a given letter or combination for a certain sound) [18, 238].

b) Dictation involves learning and the ability to transform what is heard into its written form. Dictation can't teach anything new it only test-existing knowledge. Actual dictation should conversational forms of spoken English.

Rules for dictation:

Necessities and stimulates preparatory productive work by the learners under the teacher's guidance

Provides practice in the correct spelling of words whose spelling the learners know but may forget

Enables the teacher to test the learners' attainments in spelling and reveals to him/her their difficulties

Brings home to the learners where they stand and what they can do towards improving their command of spelling

A passage for dictation should be read 3 times:

1) At a normal reading pace, to allow learners to hear the whole passage. 2) At dictation speed with pauses to allow them to write.

3) At a normal speed with pauses at full stops, to allow the learners to fill in the gaps or made alternatives.

Types of dictations:

Preventive dictations: sighted, preventive, explanatory:

Sighted - students first read the text then the teacher dictates then.

Preventive - preliminary discussion & analysis of difficulties is taken place to prevent mistakes.

Explanatory - the more difficult words are discussed not before but after they committed (learners write them on the blackboard & then discuss)

2. Teaching writing as a type of speech activity in FL

2.1 Teaching writing to a specific group of learners

2.1.1 Teaching writing to struggling learners

It is usually assumed that struggling learners, particularly students with special needs, have “unique” instructional requirements--that is, deficits--that require specialized instruction. However, we do not believe this to be true of struggling writers, including remedial or special education students. There is no evidence that persuades us that struggling writers have unique instructional needs that require a form of writing instruction that is qualitatively different from the instruction provided to their more academically successful peers. Specifically, there isn't a pool of instructional interventions specific to struggling writers. On the contrary, differential instruction that denies struggling learners access to the same high-quality writing instruction provided to their more academically successful peers can have the effect of exacerbating learning problems. Often this differential instruction takes the form of an overemphasis on the mechanics of writing (spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) at the expense of instruction in writing purposeful texts [19, 165].

Recommendations for Teachers in teaching writing to struggling learners:

In general, to best support writing development classrooms should have four basic components:

1. Writing assignments should be meaningful and authentic, promoting personal reflection and discovery.

2. A predictable and stable routine of writing practice that allows students to go at their own pace.

3. Lessons to help students master structural elements, writing skills, and planning strategies.

4. Use of common terms to provide feedback and expectations.

More specific recommendations follow:

1. Provide procedural supports. This can include personal conferences about students' writing, checklists for editing and revising, planning forms and charts, and computer programs to assist in transcriptions.

2. Emphasize not only teacher-student collaboration, but also peer collaboration. Develop a community in which all students are viewed as writers, and in which risk-taking and personal ownership of writing are encouraged. Have students share their writing and ideas with a partner or group. Encourage peer feedback and have peers mark the specific confusing and interesting parts of another's work and explain why. Have writers defend any parts they do not want to change (promotes ownership).

3. Integrate writing within other content areas such as math or science. For example, emphasize common themes across subjects and have students keep journals/notebooks for each separate subject.

4. Have guest authors come in to speak to students about their own experiences, successes, and struggles with writing. This will help students view writing as an art or craft, and will provide a potential role model.

5. Have a publishing commemoration that celebrates student writing. In order to help make writing enjoyable and rewarding, create a class anthology of stories and poems, a class or school newsletter, a public reading in the school, or use of pen pals.

6. Use a writing notebook. Students should use this to write down ideas and inspirations for writing, using planning strategies, doing drafts, and logging writing activities and instructions. Also, encourage the use of a personal journal for outside classroom writing.

7. Have students use a visual display of check-in status in order to maintain individual progress in writing. For example, have students keep a cube on their desks with the sides labeled with the five stages of writing (plan, draft, revise, edit, publish) and the sixth side labeled “help,” for when teacher assistance is needed.

8. Provide regular communication about specific writing qualities/traits such as voice, organization, word choice, and sentence fluency. Use a scoring rubric for each of these traits; use genre-specific rubrics when teaching different genres. Help students develop a strong example of each trait by reading different excerpts. Use writing portfolios to both provide feedback on trait use in writing and to have students establish individual writing goals.

9. Provide extra handwriting and spelling instruction to help struggling writers who may be focusing too much of their mental energy on these areas instead of writing. This especially helps improve sentence construction and content generation.

10. Focus extra class time on the planning stage of writing to help increase students' knowledge, skill, and motivation. Use a “Planning Think Sheet” which specifies the audience, reasons for writing, and personal knowledge about the topic, as well as encouraging thought about how to organize and group ideas.

11. Use a recursive approach to teaching writing stages, encouraging students to revisit stages when necessary throughout the writing process.