Bp 48 Writing Process

Theme Learning to learn how to write
BP for Language teachers, Language students

Need

One of the most difficult tasks in language learning is to produce clear written text. The task is difficult even in your mother tongue, and clearly not everyone can produce clear text. Foreign language teachers, often face a situation where they need to teach how to produce a clear text, but the basic skills are not even present in the mother tongue of the student.

If we see writing as a process, with logical steps, we can then simplify the task. In addition, once the skill has been taught it can be transferred across all the languages being learnt.

Description

Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps

• Prewriting
• Drafting
• Revising
• Editing

It is a recursive process. While you are revising, you might have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas.

You can access open courseware materials that describe the technique www.ocw.usu.edu/English/english-1010/writing-process.html

Research has shown the benefits of this approach that has been extensively used in USA and now in Europe.

Extra Help

Writing centre at MIT www.web.mit.edu/writing/Writing_Process/writingprocess.html
Interesting proposal at MIT www.ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Writing-and-Humanistic-Studies/21W- 784Fall-2005/CoursePedagogy/