What Is Writing and What Is Its Purpose in the Language Classroom?
Often when we think about writing, we think of writing an essay, but writing can also be thought of in a much broader sense. Literacy researchers, who also often study first language writers, have considered writing to include daily tasks such as keeping lists and filling out forms as well as blog writing and even tweeting. In this sense, writing is a modality that helps people achieve real-life goals. In contrast, in language classes, writing can help students achieve language learning goals. In sum, writing can be something through which one communicates information to a wide audience, a tool through which one accomplishes real-life tasks, or a modality in which teachers construct pedagogical activities to help students learn language.
One approach to thinking about teaching writing is to consider three different reasons that students in language classes might write. First, writing can be used to help students learn language. For example, students studying Spanish in a beginning high school class may not have specific writing goals. Instead, they may simply want to learn to speak, or, more likely, they may not know why they are studying the language, or they may be doing so simply to fulfill a requirement. Nevertheless, teachers can (and should) construct writing activities that will help students learn language. This is often called a writing-to-learn-language approach and is discussed in more detail in the next section. An example of a writing-to-learn-language activity might be to give students a set of pictures with a set of vocabulary words and ask them to write a story describing the pictures with the words provided. The primary goal of this activity is for students to be able to use the new vocabulary as opposed to being able to write a story from pictures, which likely has no real-life equivalent.
In contrast, students might have writing goals outside of the classroom. These might include tasks as diverse as writing an email to a hotel to inquire about amenities or writing a research paper for publication. In this case, instruction should focus on writing a specific genre for a specific audience. This is often called a learning-to-write approach. Such an approach, which is detailed later, often involves having students look at real-life examples, after which the teacher helps the students through the process of producing the target text. Of course, students can and should learn language in this approach. A learning-to-write approach includes language goals, but they are directly related to the target genre. For example, if students are learning how to write a polite email in English, they would need to understand how to use modals in this context. In contrast, in a writing-to-learn-language approach, the language objectives, not the task, are the starting point.
A third approach that can be discussed in the context of language teaching is a writing-to-learn-content approach. It is easiest to think about this approach outside of a language class. For example, a teacher may have students write about how they solved a math problem to help them learn math. In this case, writing forces the students to think about and reflect on the problem-solving process. Similarly, a professor in a language teaching methods class might have students observe a class and write about the class while focusing on specific topics. Most people will never have to write about solving a math problem or about what they observed in a language class, but in both cases, the act of writing is a process for reflection and a way for students to organize their thoughts on the content.
Although this last approach is not discussed in detail here, it can be useful to consider in certain contexts related to language learning. In an ESL context, a child might understand and complete a mathematical operation but not be able to talk about math in English. Having the student write about the problem will not necessarily help the student learn math and, in fact, might slow him or her down, but it might provide the student with the vocabulary and grammar needed to be able to talk about math and understand explanations about math in English. Another context in which writing-to-learn-content should be considered is when teaching about history, literature, or culture in the target language. A teacher might, for example, have students write a journal entry about their reactions to a short story or a paper about an authorâs background. The instructorâs goal may be for the students to understand the literature by writing about it. However, the act of writing, as with the ESL math student, requires productive use of grammar and vocabulary and should facilitate language learning. This approach, too, is not mutually exclusive with the others in terms of activities but rather represents a different instructional starting point related to the instructorâs goals.
This module is organized into three sections. In the first, I expand on the writing-to-learn-language approach and provide examples of activities. In the second part, I focus on real-life writing tasks and genres and activities that will scaffold students through the assignments. I end with a short discussion of the major issues related to assessing writing, but it is recommended that readers see the module on language assessment in this series for more details on the major issues related to assessment.
Reflection
What kinds of writing did you have to do when you were beginning to study another language? What do you think the purpose of the writing was?
