Listening, speaking, reading and wrtiting (IV)

WRITING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

The process of learning to write in a foreign language should be started in Primary Education and it really never ends. 

Academic: writing is the production of sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together to form a coherent whole called text.

From a communicative perspective we could understand writing as "the ability to communicate with each other and express our own ideas in written form".

Specific skills attached to writing

Writing is clearly a complex process requiring the ability to manipulate many sub-skills simultaneously.

Graphic or Visual skills

Spelling: difference between pronunciation and spelling in the English language. How can our students improve their spelling? We advise them to: 

1. Select priority words to learn. 
2. Get plentiful, regular practice. 
3. Know about the language.
4. Learn techniques
5. Develop an interest in words. 
6. Check their work. 
7. Have confidence in themselves

Punctuation: learning how to use punctuation correctly is a slow and laborious process. It should be started from the very beggining. 

Layout: there are certain conventions on how to write a letter, construct a paragraph, organise a written text and so on that are culturally determined. 

Grammatical Skills

This refers to the students' skill in making efficient use of the grammatical structures and constructions. 

Expressive or Stylistic skills

This includes the leraner's capacity to select the most appropiate meaning in a range of styles and registers. Sociolinguistic competence. 

Rethorical Skills

This refers to the ability to use lingusitic cohesive devices -what we call "connectors" and "modifiers"- in order to link parts of  a text into logically related sequences. Discourse competences.

Organisational Skills

The organisation of pieces of information into paragraphs and texts.

Relationship between the four skills

It is an obvious fact that languages are spoken before they are written. There are people who communicate perfectly in the spoken language without being able to express themselves in writing. When introducing the skills we should know what stage the learners are at in the acquistion of their first language skills. Only when children are confident with reading and writing in L1 can we begin the task with L2. 

At begginer levels in particular, writing practice should be aimed at, reinforcing the learning of lingusitic elements which have been practised orally, without practice and structures of written language itself. 

Integrated skills: it means that we can create activities, tasks where the four basic skills are practiced.