Teaching writing.

Writing has always been the most difficult skill to master for English learners as it is not innate like i.e. speaking and it needs to be continuously learned. According to Harmer (1998) there are 4 reasons of teaching writing. These are
· Reinforcement – in the first one, some students are auditory learners. They acquire a foreign language in an oral way easily. However, most of us are visual learners and seeing something written is an invaluable source of learning. Visualizing sentences helps students to memorize and understand them.
· language development – the process of writing is improved when practiced, so the longer we acquire our knowledge of writing, the better our papers are.
· learning style – some students possess an invaluable ability of learning fast and some need much more time to accomplish the same work. The pace of their work is slower and thus they are able to think everything through to produce language. Quietening activity instead of dynamic communication.
· writing as a skill
Each learner, before starting writing, needs to establish its aim and the audience. The most efficient way of learning this skill is describing real-life situations to real people, such as other classmates, teachers or people thay may meet in the future. The choice of writing tasks will depend on why students are studying English.
· English as a Second Language (known as ESL) refers to speakers who live in an English-speaking country but their mother tongue is different from English. They need to acquire it to be able to communicate in the community.
· English as a Foreign Language (in short EFL) is used with reference to teaching English to students who live in or outside an English-speaking community and who are taught it at state schools, language schools or by tutors. Teachers, however, do not need to be native speakers but they need to have a certificate or completed higher education that certifies their qualifications.
· English for Specific Purposes (that is ESP) describes teaching for special purposes, for instance, Business English, Medical English or Legal English where learners acquire language that is appropriate for their specialist fields.
The process of writing contains 4 main elements: planning, drafting, editing and final draft.
ü Planning – the purpose of writing, think about what he’s going to present & the audience. Language is chosen at this stage.
ü Drafting – is the 1st attempt to write, writers are focused on conveying messages and fluency rather than grammar or handwriting.
ü Editing – a natural stage of writing, reading their papers to analyze the content or change the order of sentences; at this stage they focus on grammar accuracy
ü Final version – a small masterpiece that he has created. It may differ from planning & drafting as changes could be done while editing process. It is ready to spread to the audience. At this stage handwriting is important.
What is more, cohesion and coherence are very important while writing. A text is cohesive if its elements are linked together. A text is coherent if it makes sense. It should be clear that these are not the same thing. That is, a text may be cohesive (i.e. linked together), but incoherent (i.e. meaningless). Here is one such (invented) text:
I am a teacher. The teacher was late for class. Class rhymes with grass. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But it wasn't.
Each sentence is notionally linked to the one that precedes it, using both lexical and grammatical means, but the text is ultimately senseless.