Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language FOURTH EDITION MARIANNE CELCE-MURCIA DONNA M. BRINTON MARGUERITE ANN SNOW EDITORS NATIONAL 0 GEOGRAPHIC LEARNING o's HEINLE oF CENGAGE Learning: “pan Korea «Mec» Singapte- pan United Kingdom + United Sates, Lee14 Practical Tasks for Mastering the Mechanics of Writing and Going Just Beyond ELITE OLSHTAIN KEY QUESTIONS > How can initial writing activities connect phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, on the one hand, with pronunciation, reading, and writing, on the other, in a beginner's course in English as a second or foreign language? > How can we create a graded program that leads learners from the initial mechanical steps in writing to authentic communication via writing for real-life purposes? > How can we take advantage of the world around us and of the latest technological developments to create interesting writing activities for beginners? EXPERIENCE Weare visiting a class of 12-year-old children teaming English as a foreign language (EFL). Each student is sitting in front of a laptop and doing individual practice using sentences in the present progressive to describe a picture. The summary of the activities requires the students to write their own description of the picture, and one of the students is surprised to find that she did not double the verb's final letter before adding ~ing in sitting and beginning. The teacher, using the students’ first language, draws their attention to some rules they studied earlier by using the interactive white board: ‘The pronunciation patterns that we learned when we had words like sit, hit, slip, etc., helped us in pronouncing the vowel letter i correctly as /1/. Verbs that have such short syllables ending in one consonant double the final conso- nant before adding —ing (siting) ‘The same is true for longer verbs that end in a stressed syllable that looks like the short syl- lables, such as in words like bagin (beginning), The teacher continues to practice various verbs that students already know, showing them where 208 there is doubling and where there is no need for doubling, as in examples with a verb ending in a silent ¢ (urite—> writing). ‘WHAT IS INVOLVED IN MASTERING THE MECHANICS OF WRITING? Within a discourse-based approach to guage teaching, where the goal of interaction is meaningful communication, the skill of writing enjoys special status. It is via writing that a per- son can communicate a variety of messages 10 a close or distant, known or unknown reader. (See Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, this volume, regarding discourse-based approaches to language teaching.) Such communication is extremely important in the modern world, whether the interaction takes the form of traditional paperané-pencil writing or an up-to-date digital message on a computer, a cell phone, or any other technological device. Writing as a communicative activity needs to be encour aged and nurtured during the language learner's course of study. This chapter focuses on the early stages of English as a second language (ESL) and EFL writing, which are a critical prerequisite to the later development of writing for communication,What are the important components when learning to write in a new language? Viewing writing as an act of communication sug- gests an interactive process that takes place between the writer and the reader via the text. Such an approach places value on the goal of writing as ‘well as on the perceived (or intended) reader audi ence. These two aspects of the act of writing need to be stressed even at the very beginning level, as soon as students can create the smallest meaning- ful messages. Teachers need to encourage students to define for themselves the messages they want t0 send and the audiences who will receive them, The writing process, in comparison to spo- ken interaction, imposes greater demands on the text, since most of the time written interaction Jacks immediate feedback. The writer should try to anticipate the reader's reactions and produce a text that will adhere to Grice’s (1975) cooperative principle According to this principle, the writer is obligated (by mutual cooperation) to try to write a clear, relevant, ruthful, and preferably interesting and memorable text. The reader, on the other hand, will interpret the text with due regard for the writer's presumed intention if the necessary clues are available in the text. This is true even for the shortest and most reduced digital text message: All the clues needed by the reader to understand the writer's intention should be included in the text. In academic of official exchanges in writing, itis important that the linguistic accuracy, clarity of presentation, and organization of ideas support the efficacy of the communicative act, since they supply the clues for interpretation. Accordingly, while the global perspectives of content and orga- nization must be focused on and given appropriate attention, it is also important to present a product that does not suffer from illegible handwriting, numerous spelling errors, faulty punctuation, or inaccurate sentence structure, any of which may render the message unintelligible The present chapter focuses on the gradual development of the mechanics of writing, a neces- sary instrumental skill without which meaningful writing cannot take place. At this early stage of learning, the primary goal is to recognize and reproduce the elements of the target language writing system (the leiters or other graphic shapes) There is, however, another important objective to the writing of graphic shapes—it provides students ‘with support in the acquisition of the mechanics of reading. They gain a sound basis for letter and word recognition when reading. Itis important to remember that in the ESL/ EFL context, writing, like the other language skills, needs to be dealt with at the particular level of line guistic and discourse proficiency that the intended students have reached (Raimes, 1985). The pro- posed! sequence of activities will start with primary focus on the mechanical aspects of the writing skill and move on to a more communicative goal. Writing systems EFL learners usually acquire the mechanics of writ- ing in English as an extension of their ability to read and write in their first language (L1). Its therefore important to first understand what writing system the students already know to design an efficient program that suits their particular needs. ‘Our first global consideration is whether the student’s LI has a writing system based on meaning, such as Chinese (the graphic sign ie a unit of mean ing) or a system based on sounds. In writing systems based on meaning, the graphic sign is linked to a meaning in the real world; in the writing systems based on sounds, the graphic sign is linked to a spoken sound (usually a phoneme as in English) or a syllable (as in the Japanese katakana writing system). Many languages in the sound:-based writing group use an alphabetic system in which a graphic sign stands, in principle, for a phoneme. In such ‘writing systems, we talk about phoneme-grapheme (or sound-toletter) correspondences. Korean has basically an alphabetic writing system consisting of consonant and vowel symbols, but when they are put together they form syllables. Some of these alpha- betic writing ystems are more transparent and con- sistent in representing these correspondences than others. Italian and Finnish are good examples of transparent and highly consistent alphabetic writing systems (V. Cook, 2008). English, on the other hand, is much less transparent and has complicated rules for linking graphemes with phonemes. We often talk about sound-spelling correspondences in English to capture the complexity of the writing system. ‘The direction of the writing system can be up and down and in columns (as it is for traditional Chapter 14 209Chinese and Japanese) or in lines (as it is for European and Middle Eastern languages). The direction on each line can be left to right for lan- guages with Roman or Cyrillic alphabets or right to left for languages like Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew. Suitable practice activities need to be developed according to the needs of students who may come from language backgrounds with scripts that have an orientation other than the left-to-right, hor:zon- tal writing used for English. CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS. Early writing in a new language Children learning to read and write in their LI have had prior experience with the language by listening to stories, being read to, interacting with adults and others in their environment, and observing people writing. In fact, many children have developed an understanding of writing before they actually need to learn how to write in school. Most imporant, they have acquired a large vocabulary in their own language. The EPL learner, on the other hand, usu- ally knows how to read and write in his or her own Janguage but often has to adjust to a new writing system while acquiring the first words in that new language. The arquisition of the new writing system has to be carried out within the linguistic framework of the knowledge newly acquired in the target an- guage. This is an important consideration that will come up at various points along the way. Learners whose first language employs the Roman alphabet already possess the appropriate direction of reading and writing, they recognize and use letters with the same shapes as those in English, and they are aware of the phonological processing route (V. Cook, 2008). Sometimes the L1 writing system uses a different alphebet such as Cyrillic, used for many Slavic languages, or for Greek, which has its own alphabet. In these cases, learners may have to adjust to a few new phoneme-grapheme correspondences, but mainly they need to focus on the orthographic regularities and irregularities in English, which probably has a less transparent writing’ system than their LI Leamers whose Li employs an. alphabetic system that is different from the Roman alphabet need to focus on the appropriate direction of 210 Unie it reading and writing, on learning to recognize and produce the actual graphic characters, and on learning both the regularities and irregularities of the English writing system. These carly steps will be significant for developing efficient reading and ‘writing strategies at later stages. Learners whose Ll employs a meaning-based writing system (eg., Chinese) will have a more difficult task acquiring the English writing system, specially if this is their first encounter with a Roman alphabet. They need careful training in associating a graphic sign with a vocal sound and then recognizing sequences of such graphic signs as words. The phonological process route, which is only partially familiar to them, will need to be enhanced and practiced in the new writing system, Phonemic awareness might require some practice as well. At the same time, these learners must get used to the appropriate direction of reading and writing, Eventually, they too, will need to learn both the regularities and irregularities of the English ‘writing system All learners, irrespective of their language background, will need to learn the English punc- tuation system and the English spelling rules These will develop along with the acquisition of the language in the first years of studying English, since many of the spelling rules are related to morphological rules and can be learned as part of the morphology. For example, doubling the final consonant of certain verbs can be taught along with regular past tense formation (eg. fit fitted) The mechanics of reading and writing When using the term mechanies of writing, we usually refer to the very early stage of letter rec- ognition, letter discrimination, sound-o-letter cor- respondence, word recognition, and basic rules of spelling. Just beyond this early stage, we continue to expand the spelling rules, focus on punctuation and capitalization, and cover the comprehension and production of sentences and short paragraphs, The time devoted to developing the mechanics of writing serves the acquisition of both reading and ‘writing skills ‘The interaction between reading and writing has often been stressed in language teaching, yet it deserves even stronger emphasis at this earlystage. To learn how to discriminate one letter from another while reading, learners need to practice writing these letters; to facilitate their percep- tion of words and sentences during the reading process, they might need to practice writing them. first. Its therefore the case that writing plays an important role in early reading by facilitating the development of both the reading and writing skill. The importance of this early stage of reading and writing is emphasized in a study by Ke (1996) on the relationship between Chinese character recognition and production at the early stages of learning. With the English alphabet, this stage is much simpler, yet it deserves appropriate atten- tion, especially for learners accustomed to other ‘writing systems and for adult preliterate learners. Sound-spelling correspondences English presents the learner with a number of unique difficulties related to its orthographic rules, even in cases in which the learners come from a first language writing system based on the Roman alpha- bet. Students and teachers alike often throw their hands up in despair, ready to give up on finding r able rules for English orthography; yet the English writing system is much more rule governed than ‘many realize. In fact, English has a very systematic set of sound:spelling correspondences (Chomsky & Halle, 1968; Schane, 1970; Venezky, 1970). These sound-spelling correspondences enable the ESL/ EFL teacher to combine the teaching of phonetic units with graphic units and to give students prac- tice in pronunciation along with practice in spelling Gee Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 2010). The English consonants The first rule to remember about English orthog- raphy is that stuclents may tend to look for a one- toto one correspondence and then discover that they get into a lot of trouble by doing this. For most of the 21 consonant letters, this type of rule works fairly well if we disregard allophonic! dif- ferences in pronunciation, such as ¢ (/t/) being pronounced as an aspirated initial (t"] (as in ten) as opposed to a nonaspirated, unreleased final [7] (as in net) for monosyllabic words in English. Yet there are also consonant letters whose sounds depend on the environment in which they occur Thus, the letter ¢ can have the sound /k/ when followed by the vowel letters a, o, or u (e.g. call, «ook, cup) or by the consonant letters J, or k (6g, lich, crew, rocker). However, it bas the sound /s/ when followed by the vowel letters « i, or y (eg. cell, cinch, jst). Although these rules may appear confusing to a learner coming from an LI with a trarsparent phoneme-grapheme correspondence system, they work quite consistently in English and need to be introduced and practiced from the very star, The story of the letter cis not finished, how- ever, and now we come to the part that is less con- sistent. This occurs when cis followed by the letter ‘hand can have the sound of /{f/ (chocolate) or /k/ (chorus), There is no help we can give our students in this respect but to tell them to pay special atten- tion to such words and to try to remember their initial sound according to the meaning of the word. The letter ¢ also occurs in quite a number of common words followed by the letter k (not ini- tially, but in the middle or at the end of words, ¢g., chicken and lock). The sound in this case is /k/, and the correspondence should create no difficulty. The letter g in English demonstrates a simi- lar pattern, When followed by the vowel letters @ o, and w or the consonant lees r aul itis pronounced /g/ as in gas, go, gun, grass, and glo. However, before the vowel letters i, ¢ and 9, the letter gis pronounced /ds/ as in gin, gem, and gyn. We thus need to alert students to the fact that the correspondence in English is not always between letter and sound but between the letter and its immediate environment and the relevant sound. In many such cases, the correspondences are quite predictable, while in others, the rules do not always work as well. Another helpful generalization for English consonants is related to the letter f, which is very powerful in changing the sound of the consonant that it follows. Thus, the letter combi- nations ck, sh, and th represent distinct consonant sounds (/¥/, /{/, and /8/ or /8/, respectively) in worcs such as chin, shut, and thin Or then. Learners neeé to recognize these graphic clusters as such Our discussion of the letters « g and / highlights he tjpes of difficulties that learners can encounter with consonant letters in English. There must also be an awareness of common and frequent excep- tions. For example, despite the rules, the letter gin get or give is pronounced /g/; the letter cin calois pronounced /{{/ Chapter 14 211Teachers also need to be aware that there are many silent consonants in English, such as these ‘common cases that beginners might encounter: 5 hor gbefore m: knock, knee, gnaw, gnome = Lafter vowels and before final consonants in several contexts: could, would; walk, talk; calf, half 8 ghafter vowels: through, sigh, light, caught © — word-final 6 and n after m: comb, thumb, * autumn, column = tafter sand before ~en or le whistle, listen To summarize, when teaching consonant let- ters and their sound correspondences to students whose own alphabet is similar to that of English, we need to focus only on the unique features of the English writing system and its irregularities. On the other hand, when teaching students coming from a different alphabetic writing system (cz. Arabic, Russian, or Korean), a syllable-based 3j8- tem (e.g,, Japanese katakana), or a meaning-based system (e.g., Chinese), teachers need to emphasize the recognition of every consonant letter. Here learners might have difficulties similar to the ones encountered by young children when they first learn to read and write in English as their mother tongue (such as the distinction between band @) Intensive writing practice will help learners with both the reading and the writing skill The English vowels ‘The vowel letters in English present more complex sound-spelling correspondences, but again there is much more consistency and predictability than many learners realize. First, learners need to be made aware of two basic types of syllable environ- ments that are very productive in English orthogra- phy: CVC (often the environment for short vowels) and CV or CVCe (the latter ending in a silent ¢; these are the environments for long vowels)? The terms short vowels and long vowels as used in English spelling are rather unfortunate, since they con- ceal the difference in quality by placing too much emphasis on length. The difference between the vowel sounds in the words jin and pine is not necessarily one of length (or production time) but one of phonetic quality. A true difference in vo length can be observed in the words bit versus bid 212 Unie where the quality of the to vowel sounds is simi. lar but the one preceding the voiceless consonant / is shorter than the one preceding the voiced consonant /d/.> Although we often say that the five vowel Jewers of the English alphabet! result in at least 11 or more vowel sounds (depending on the particular English dialect), these soundspelling correspondences are, at least in part, consistent and predictable. What teachers and learners need to take into account is the fact that in English we ‘must consider both the vowel letter and the envi. ronment in which it occurs. Thus, CVC syllables present a rather consistent environment forall five vowel letters a, 6 is, 0, and win which they stand for simple, lax (produced with relatively relaxed muscles), nondiphthongized® vowel sounds, as in the words pun, per, fin, pot, and but However, the same five vowel letters occurring in the CVCe envi- ronment stand for tense (produced with relatively tensed muscles) and diphthongized vowels, as in the words pane, pine, Pele, rope, and cyte. Similarly, ‘most vowels that can occur in the CV or V environ: ‘ment are also tense and usually diphthongized: go 4, 1/ms, Lat (as in Lulu). In a CVetype syllable, long aneeds a following y, as in pay, ot itis pronounced /a/ as in ma, Not all these patterns are equally frequent in English orthography. The leter «, for instance, does not often occur as the vowel sound in the CVGe environment, and leamers have to study its more common spellings as in meet and mest for the sound /iy/. In other words, there are some basic sound-spelling correspondences in English, the knowledge of which can greatly facilitate the acquisition of reading and writing. But there are also quite a number of exceptions or expansions that need to be learned individually, In teaching the basic soundspelling corre- spondences in English, it is important to empha- size the rules that provide learners with useful generalizations and that therefore help them become effective readers. Once students have assimilated and internalized the basic features of such correspondences—namely, the distinction between CVC and CV or CVCe syllables—they will be able to apply these patterns not only to mono- syllabic words but also to polysjlabic ones; in such the stressed syllable can act as a monosy- labic environment for lettersound vowel corre- spondences (e-g., open, dispose rest).Furthermore, some of the more advanced spelling rules related to English morphology can be facilitated by this knowledge. In polysyllabic verbs in which the final syllable is stressed, the spelling rules for adding the inflection ~ing work in the same manner as in monosyllabic verbs. Thus, learners who know the rule for consonant letter doubling when changing sit to sitting will be able to apply the same rule to any polysyliabic verb that ends with a stressed syllable having the form CVC. Therefore, the verb begin, since its final syllable is stressed, will undergo doubling of the last letter in beginning, as ‘opposed to the verb open, where the final syllable is not stressed and the ~ing form is opening. However, in spite of all that has been said so far, English orthography has a notorious reputation because, in addition to all these helpful and relatively reliable rules, we must take into account some less productive rules that have a lot of exceptions. These exceptions are often found in some very common words that defy the most basic rules, such as ioe, ‘ave, and love, where the silente rule does not work. ‘There are some additional rules that are quite predictable, such as the occurrence of the letter a in front af Lor Ul, which (in some dialects) is quite tently realized as /2/ as in call, or the letter @ in front of the letter r, which has the sound of /a/ asin car. In general, the letters/sounds fand raffect the way the preceding vowel letter is pronounced, causing it to represent a more centralized (ie. pronounced in the center of the mouth) vowel as in the words world, bird, and curd. Furthermore, the vowel diphthongs have a variety of spellings, such as the following letter combinations, all of which correspond to the same vowel diphthong /iy/: meat, beet, and cede, So, while itis true that there are quite a few cases in English that need to be learned as individual correspondences, there are far fewer than people imagine (for good sources of rules ‘on sound-spelling correspondences, see Schane, 1970; Venezky, 1970) In summing up this section dealing with the teaching points relevant to the mechanics of reading and writing, we emphasize that itis impor- tant for learners of ESL/EFL to realize from the start that English orthography is by no means a one-to-one lettersound correspondence system; it has its own consistency embedded in the combina- tions of letters in their environments, resulting in what we call sound-spelling correspondences. Byintroducing the proper pronunciation of sounds in relation to the given spelling patterns, we can rovide learners with a good basis for pronunciae tion as well as for the skills of reading and writing, ‘The three areas of pronunciation, reading, and ‘writing go hand in hand in the very early stages of acquiring another language. CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS How do we teach mechanics? The teaching of the mechanics of reading and writing has three goals: (1) to enhance letter recognition, especially when learners come from a different writing system; (2) to practice sound- spelling correspondences via all four language skills; and (3) to help the learner move from let- ters and words to meaningful sentences and larger units of discourse. Recognition and writing drills constitute the firs: steps in the development of effective reading and writing habits. However, to acquire active mas- tery of the sound-spelling correspondences, it is necessary for the learners to arrive at relevant gen- eraizations concerning these correspondences. Such generalizations lead (0 a better understand- ing of the systematic representation of sounds in English orthography and require learners to master some basic phonological rules in English and develop an ability to recognize the distinctive features of each letter within a spelling pattern, Three major types of recognition tasks are used at this early stage of reading and writing, each type incorporating an adequate variety of ris: (1) matching tasks; (2) writing tasks; and (8) meaningful soundspelling correspondence practice. These drills can be carried out using paper and pencil or via computerized digitalized lessons. Matching tasks. ‘The major objective of matching tasks is to practice the quick and effective recognic tion of the English letters. This is particularly impor- tant for learners who know a writing system that does not use the Roman alphabet. Many ofthe diills used here are similar to the drill used for beginning reacers of English who are native speakers. Learners need (0 distinguish a particular letter from other similar letters, they need to match words beginning or ending with the same small or capital leter, and Chapter 14. 2131. Letter recognition actives: |. Find the ODD MAN OUT, bh® nha Oj) pbb dbd b. Find the same lewe. bn d®ck kjfkhi a@bpidh ce Findallthe dX. Findall he A fk sn@i skj hae sjddbp zknbse hfkszm mhahss fdkjom fghkho 4. Undestine the words that have et ben bed ‘& Underline the words ending in aed bed ip 2 Match capital letters with lower cate Connect the wards beginning with the same leer, sb pin Ta Bin net Net Figure |. Sample matching tasks (adapted from Olshtain, Crumlish, Goell, & Kaeller, 1970), they need to search fora certain letter within a group of different letters. All these exercises are focused on recognition and do not require either writing or pronouncing the letters or words. When the drills are done digitally, students drag similar letters and words to matching positions or relevant groups or simply click on them. Ata slightly more advanced stage, the drill requires students to match words with pictures and even short sentences with pictures. This can be used when students can work with meaning as well as accurate recognition. Figure 1 provides some sample matching tasks. Writing tasks. The major objective of writing tasks is to allow students to produce the shapes of the letters both as a recognition and a production task. Usually these activities begin with tracing letters that are printed on the page. In this way, students can focus on the detailed characteristics of the letters. This stage is needed only for learners who come from a different writing system; students familiar with the Roman alphabet can move right to writing meaningful words. In computerized activities, students can type out the letters on the keyboard and thus practice using the keyboard as well as the alphabet. Figure 2 provides a sample writing task involving tracing letters, words, and sentences; Figure 3 provides a sample task invoh- ing meaningful copying activities, Sound-spelling correspondence tasks. ‘The major objective of sound-spelling correspondence tasks 214 Unicit is for the learner to match individual sounds or sequences of sounds and words with their written form. The teacher may read the words, or students may listen to a recorded drill. In either case, the focus here is on listening and recognizing the sound corresponding to the relevant written form, The spelling environments are important in these kinds of tasks. The distinction between CVC and CVCe can be practiced in many different ways. In the computerized version, there is a voice accom: panying the activities and students choose the written forms according to the sounds they heat. Students can also be asked to pronounce the writ. ten forms and thus practice pronunciation. These activities provide learners with a solid basis for all four languages skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Figure 4 provides 2 sample task that focuses on sound-spelling correspondences. ‘An important feature of this early stage of writing is the need to accustom learners to using the appropriate capitalization rules in English and some basic rules of punctuation. While prac- ticing soundspelling correspondences, students can be writing meaningful sentences, or typing them on the keyboard, with proper capitalization and punctuation such as the following simple sentences, which focus on some of the important, environments that need practice: ‘Theres a cat on the mat anal a cake on the plate ‘The ball is near the tall boy next to the wallFigure 2. Tracing letters, words, and sentences (adepted from Olshtain, Crumlish, Goell, & Kneller, 1970) ‘These sentences contain words that exemplify sound- spelling correspondences and that, at the same time, hhave probably already been leamed by the students Such sentences should be accompanied by pictures to ensure that learners understand the meaning. We ‘may not be able to write a whole story this way, but TI. Meaningful Copying Acti (Adapted from Olshtan et al. 1998, pp. 76,89 1. Read! and deci since our focus is first and foremost on the sound- spelling correspondences, it is an important step toxarel more meaningful personal writing. Eventually, the discourse units that students write will grow and incorporate more meaningful and interesting texts. ‘The language knowledge the students gain can be the an 157) ‘Dan wants to win at tennis, He doesn’ practice lt, but when he goes to lye as ek ng ih im, He think it ean help Dan, ip his win, What do Iecan't help Dan 2, Red shout Lacky the Rock Star in Everese 3 below Then answer these questions ‘What i he weating? What is he doing? (continued) Figure 3. Meaningful copying activities (adapted from Olshtain, Feuerstein, Schcolik, & Zerach, 1998). Chapter 14 215‘3. Whois Lucky the Rock Sta? Read and check (V7), He i wearing 2 necklaces He is wearing a funny bat He is wearing huge sunglasses. le is ‘wearing new black shoes. He t wearing olf ugly jenns. He is holding a guitar. He is sting fon back cha 44. Read and decide. Where does he iv? In South Carolina or Canada? He does’ Tie = 5. Wate about today’s weather, These sentenses may help you. Tis very nice. T's cloudy. I'shot, L's warm Ti'scold. Trswindy. TFs airy Figure 3. Meaningful copying activities (adapted from Olshtain, Feuerstein, Schcolnik, & Zerach, 1998). (Continued) 216 UniPracticing Sound-Spelling Correspondences L. The lene ain altand at a. Read the following words out loud. all ako ball aways | call mone fall although | wal tal I halt : a ‘bu the sound i iferent in dhe word— E shall i a E Scheolnik, & Zerach, 1998). | __ basis for developing more sophisticated and person- | ally relevant texts. ‘At this early stage of writing, we need to give learners “plenty of opportunities for copying” (Byme, 1988, p. 130), eitherin handwriting or in key- boarding. Such copying activities can be macle more challenging by asking students to create sentences for new contexts. One such activity is to provide a bank of sentences and pictures; stuclents copy the proper sentence below the matching picture. Although copying may seem terribly mechanical, it allows students to practice words and sentences while gaining fluency in writing. rT More advanced writing tasks More advanced writing activities that start shifting from a focus on the mechanics of writing to basic processoriented tasks need to incorporate some language work at the morphological and discourse levels. The activities suggested for this part of the program focus on both accuracy and content, with a clear communicative goal. At this stage, we are still concerned with the beginning level of ESL/ EFL, yet the focus shifts toward communication. Three types of writing tasks serve as the frame- work for communicative writing activities: prac- al writing tasks, emotive writing tasks, and schooloriented tasks. These activities can all be carried out in handwriting for traditional writing exchanges as well as using email messages, social Retwork postings, or any other digital interaction. Figure 4. Practicing sound-speling correspondences (adapted from Olshtain, Feuerstein, Use the above words to write the missing lewers and then read the sentence, aMs flow 2 Underline the word your teacher says atin bam emit dobad —@ hide f, ean ade hid ane bid had cap To develop and use these more demanding ‘iting activities in the ESL/EFL classroom, we need to develop a detailed set of specifications that will enable both teachers and students to cope successfully with these tasks. Such a set of specifications should include: The task description: This description presents students with the goal of the task and its impor- tance. Such a task description will initially be pro- vided by the teacher, and eventually students will provide their own task and define it. ‘The content description: This description presents students with possible content areas that are relevant to the task. Here again, the teacher will first sug- ‘gest these areas, but gradually students will become more involved via discussion and brainstorming in suggesting relevant content, ‘The audience description: This description guides students in developing an understanding of the intended audience, its background, needs, and expectations. Gradually students will be guided to ‘write authentic messages to friends and others. Format cues: These cues help students in plan- ning the overall organizational structures of the written product. Even for short messages or emails, students should learn to plan the format to ensure effective communication. Linguistic cues: These cues help students make use of certain grammatical structures and vocabu- lary choices that are appropriate for the intended age. Chapter 14 217Spelling and punctuation cues: These cues help students focus their attention on the spelling rules they have learned and eventually on the need to use a dictionary or a computerized spell check (to check the accuracy of spelling); they also guide students (0 use acceptable punctuation and capi- talization conventions. Practical writing tasks. These are writing tasks that are procedural in nature and have a predict able format. This makes them particularly suitable for writing activities that focus primarily on spelling and morphology. Writing lists of various types, writ- ing notes, categorizing, labeling, writing short mes sages, writing simple instructions, and other tasks are particularly useful in reinforcing classroom work. ‘There are many types of lists: things to do, things completed, things to share with others, and shopping lists. Each of these list types provides teachers with an opportunity to combine some spelling rules with morphological rules and wich the logical creation of a meaningful. message. Thingsto-do lists are useful for practicing verb base forms and reinforcing various sound-spelling correspondences. When assigning an activity, the teacher should indicate whether the list is personal or intended fora group project. The content speci fication will indicate whether this is a list of things to do in preparation for some event or just a plan for someone's daily routine. For exampie, a list for a group of students who are preparing a surprise birthday party might look like this: ‘Things to Do 1. Buy a present for Donna (Sharon). 2. Call Donna's friends (Gail) 3, Write invitations (Dan). Today it is most likely that a list like this would be sent around to the group members via email or text messages on cell phones. These types of digital activities should become part of classroom work so that students feel that they are learning to function successfully in the new language in relevant and familiar situations. Following a things-to-do list, we can casily move on to the things-completed list, which speci fies which things have already been taken care of; it is therefore useful for practicing the past tense forms of verbs. As part of this activity, students will 218 Unie need to review the regular past tense formation of verbs (in which —ed is added) and its spelling patterns, such as the deletion of a final e before adding -ed (as in live, lived); the doubling of the last consonant in monosyllabic bases of the form CVG (as in fat, patted) and the same doubling rule when the final CVC syllable of a polysyllabic verb is stressed (as in occur, occured: but not when a nonfinal syllable is stressed, as in open, opened); and the replacement of y with i when the base ends in Cy (as in ty, tied). Such an activity also enables stu- dents to practice the spelling of irregular past tense formations. For example, alist of things completed for the surprise birthday party might look like this: Things Completed 1. Planned the games for the party 2. Wrote the invitations 3. Bought the present 4, Called Donna's friends 5. Tried to call Donna's mother Shopping lists provide us with a very good opportunity to practice the spelling of the plural ending of count nouns and the use of quantifiers ‘The sound-spelling correspondences here consist of the two orthographic forms of the plural inflec- tion with its three phonetic variants; -s, which is pronounced [3] in nus, grapes, and soft drinks and is pronounced (2) in eggs, apples, and onions “es, which is pronounced [az] or [12] in peaches, oranges, and toothbrushes Another type of practical writing task is notes and messages that are left for another person or are sent via cell phone text messages. These allow students to practice brief and simple sentences with proper punctuation and a meaningful message. To make the activities more interesting and personal, students can design their own message headings and then fill them in, Here is an example: ‘Messages for My Little Sister 1, Wash the dishes in the sink. 2, Feed the dog, 3. Watch your favorite program on TV and have a good time. Such messages can also be done as “sticky notes” on the computerOther types of practical writing activities might include the completion of forms on paper or on the computer and the preparation of invita tions, greetings, and thank you notes on paper or on the computer, All these activities, when car ried out in class, require the set of specifications already mentioned, with the appropriate focus on orthographic, mechanical, and linguistic accuracy. Emotive writing tasks. Emotive writing tasks are concerned with personal writing. Such personal writing primarily includes letters to friends and nar- ratives describing personal experiences, messages on social networks, and personal journals and dia- ries. When teaching letter writing, teachers should emphasize format, punctuation, and spelling of appropriate phrases and expressions. When stu- dents write about personal experiences—usually in a narrative format—they can review and practice the spelling of past tense forms. Entries in diaries and journals, both on paper and on the computer, can take the form of personal letters and serve as a review of letter writing in general. To serve the personal needs of the leamers, emotive writing has to be quite fuent, To make these activities real and authentic, teachers should allow students to decide on their own written mes- sages. How can they carry out such tasks in the early stages of acquiring English when their knowledge of the language is limited and their vocabulary does not include all the words they may want to use? It is important at this stage to guide students to use the language that they know. Tt is always amazing to realize that, even with limited knowl edge of a new language, learners can express most of their thoughts if they plan the message carefully Personal letters and messages can be designed in simple language, reflecting the language that the students know. Teachers can provide sample pieces of writing and encourage students to design their own messages based on the models. Brainstorming activities preceding such writing activities can help develop the task specifications that should guide all students in their work. Schooloriented tasks. One of the most impor tant functions of writing in students’ lives is its use in school. Much individual learning goes on while students are writing assignments, summaries, answers to questions, and essay-type passages. In ‘most eases, the audience for these writing tasks is the teacher, but gradually students must learn to write for an unknown reader who needs to receive the information being imparted exclusively via writing. This is true, of course, both in written mes sages or digital messages. In some schools, students can correspond with their teachers via email or social networks, and they can hand in homework assignments in a digital form. At the early stages of writing, the assignments and written tasks might be very short and simple, Answers might be single phrases or sentences, sum- aries (a listing of main ideas, and descriptions), ora sequence of related sentences. All these writing activi ties should be given attention, both at the linguistic accuracy level and at the message-transmission level Students should be guided to take responsibilty for developing their writing abilities. Combining content and organization with accepted formal features of vwrting conventions will help students develop the wring skill needed in their future use of English. ‘This is particularly true of schooloriented tasks. Dialogue journal writing at the early stages. Dialogue journals enable students and teachers to interact on a one-to-one basis at any level and in any learning context. They are, therefore, also very useful communicative tasks at the early stages of learning (0 write in a new language. The dialogue journal enables the beginner in English to gener ‘ate some personal input and receive the teacher's direct feedback on it. According to Peyton and Reed (1990), both young children who are beginning writers in a sec- ond language and nonliterate adults can start diae logue journal as soon as they are comfortable writing im the classroom. The journal can start as an inter- acive picture book in which, first, the teacher and, later, the learners label the pictures and provide brief descriptions. Gradually the texts become more derailed as the communication process is enhanced. The dialogue journal, like any other writing activity, but even more so, can be done via email or or social networks, expanding the communication between teachers and students and also among the students themselves. Students should be encour- aged to use the second language as their special code for interacting with classmates. There can be a special discussion forum in which they interact with the teacher as well as with other students ‘The keyboard, rather than the pen or pencil, can become their most significant writing tool. Chapter 14. 219‘All learners in a classroom, school, or any other group can take partin a discussion forum. In this case, the writers will be addressing a wider and more varied audience. They can discuss a topic. share some ideas or experiences, and react to the writing of others. The messages on the forum should be read and judged for content rather than quality of writing (Lahav, 2005), and therefore more students may feel comfortable participating, even if their mastery of language is not perfect. Such a forum provides an authentic setting and an authentic purpose for writing. FUTURE TRENDS ‘Taking into account the writing needs of learners in general, more emphasis will be placed on writ: ten interaction via digital tools. Yet the ability to produce clear, wellunderstood messages is impor tant for all students. Students’ experiences will expand to include more and more varied types of writing activities. The present chapter sets up the basic framework for beginning students who will eventually become proficient writers in English as an additional language. While the constantly changing environment will certainly affect the learning and teaching of lan- guage in all areas of use, it will also affect research, providing new questions that need to be invest: gated. The impact of technology on writing needs to be investigated further, with a clear focus on the acquisition of the L2 writing system in its various realizations. Such issues include how many repet tions of computerized recognition activities should be included in a lesson, what mediation is needed for students to work on their own in earlylearning ‘writing activities supported by technology, and how certain writing activities affect reading fluency. CONCLUSION Teachers should be encouraged to use a variety of ‘writing tasks at all earning levels and particularly at the beginning level. Writing, in addition to being @ ‘communicative skill of vital importance, is skill that enables the learner to plan and rethink the commu- nication process. It therefore provides the learner with the opportunity to focus on both linguistic accu racy and content organization. That the mechanics of writing are particularly important in the inital 220 Unie tt stage of learning English as an additional language must be emphasized; they help students establish a good basis in and useful mastery of the sound- spelling correspondences that are crucial for reading in English. As I. S. P. Nation (2009) points out: “An ‘essential part of the reading skill is the skill of being. able to recognize written forms and to connect them with their spoken forms and their meaning” (p. 9) The focus on sound-spelling patterns also leads to improved pronunciation and, as such, plays a central role in students’ acquiring listening and speaking skills. The importance of carefully planned interaction among these different sub- skills in the initial stages of learning the language cannot be overemphasized. ‘When teachers focus on writing, in particular, they should emphasize the importance of a care- fully planned presentation, which combines the mechanics of writing with the composing process, ‘Teachers might advise students to prepare a list of guiding questions that they should try to answer in their writing activity. Such questions raise the writ- ers’ awareness about the communicative perspec- tive of a written text. ‘The early stages of an ESL/EFL course of study must provide leamers with a good foundation for furthering their knowledge in all language areas and language skills beyond the beginners’ course, The present chapter shows how important these early stages are. Yet another perspective of the beginning level, not discussed here, relates to the students’ interests and motivation to learn, The use of the tar getlanguage and writing, in particular, should reflect the learners’ realworld and real communicative needs, Since we live in an innovative, high-technology ‘world, itis important to take full advantage of what students need and want to do with their second or foreign language, right from the start, SUMMARY > By leaning how to write letters and words in the new language, students also become better readers. ‘The sound spelling correspondences in English provide learners with the basis for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and spelling. Even in the early stages of leaming a new language, once students have acquired the mechanics of writing they should begin writing for communication.> Early writing activities can take digital forms and can be used by students in authentic exchanges with their peers, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How would you plan the early writing stage dif. ferently for students whose first language uses a Roman alphabet compared to students whose first language has a writing system based on meaning? How should we sequence the teaching of the various sound-spelling correspondences (0 be most effective? Would using a computer for practice make a difference? Give an example of how the teacher of either beginning-level ESL or EFL students can com- bine elements of the composing process with elements of the mechanics of writing. How would you use Twitter or any other yypi cal social networking system to have students interact meaningfully at their level? SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES 1, At the early stages of learning a new language, we focus on some basic grammatical structures and vocabulary items. Design some interesting writing tasks for beginners, such as creating a wanted poster (ie., a poster of a criminal the police are searching for) with questions that stu- dents need to answer using a person’s descrip- tion or creating a lostpet poster, which requires the description of an animal. Suggest a variety of such activities, and evaluate their usefulness. Prepare a game or a set of cards to practice the difference between the vowels sounds in the environments CVC and CVCe (e.g., hat, hil ver- sus hate, kite). Incorporate as many words as will be meaningful for the intended student popu- lation. You may have to use some words that exemplify this sound'spelling correspondence that are not yet known to your students. How will you present the new words to your students before you practice the spelling patterns? Find pictures that can be used to produce simple descriptions. Develop a number of activities that will enable pairs or small groups to answera set of questions about each picture. ‘The questions should lead to a concise deserip- tion of what is in the picture. FURTHER READING Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. S. (2004). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. London, UK: Routledge. ‘This book provides teachers with a detailed descrip- tion of how syllabi for ESL writing programs are developed. A major chapter in the book is devoted to material and task construction that is helpful for expansion activities beyond textbooks that are used. The book also focuses on writing assessment and on developing a community of writers. Gelb, LJ. (1963) A study of writing. Chicago, 1: University of Chicago Press. A reference for those interested in the history and evolution of human writing systems. Ivanic, R. (2004). Discourses of writing and learn- ing to write, Language and Education, 18(3), 220-245. This article presents research on writing and writing pedagogy focusing on six types of discourse: a skills discourse, a creativity discourse, a process discourse, a genre discourse, a social practices discourse, and a sociopolitical discourse. Thus the article links the writing course to discourse research and provides approaches to the teaching of writing, ENDNOTES "te term elphonc contrat with che term phonemic A phnesne x “a diflerence tn sound that makes a dillerence in meaning, sich ein /p/ in pl vers inital /b/ in Bull A sllopone i 4 ‘erence sured tat piclly environmental conditioned find docs not make s diference in meaning, such asthe inital Stpirated (breaeleasing) [0] in tp verun the unaopieate, ‘nelesed final (C] in pl whieh are both alophone of the ‘Phoneme /t/ in Engsh Languages diferin that an alophonie filference in one language can be » phonemic diference In nother. Ths can complicse the learning proces "in these formulas C sands for “consonant V sands for "vowel" Sad e stands fr let Thus, de frm for word ke the fevce ® when contonans ae voiced the veal cord are wbraing when they ‘ve wicelea, the veal cords do not imove. Tha can be fl by ‘ouching the dhvoat ands peshaps most obvious wih the diference teneeen a ssnined // sound hich vied) vera stained (sf sound (whic soled). Al vel in English are vole * Sometimes y serves at sath vowel leer, replacing & Thi ot very ‘pu does occ feguendy In €V or CCV postion (emp ty, 5 tngsh vowels are diphthongited if there is tongue and lip move: ‘ent during the production ofthe sound toward /y/ 0&//- For ‘example, /)/ sein bal, /ay/ a6 bit, /ow/ an aor a 38 in slouare al diphthongived vowels Nor Ameriean Engi ‘Vouel are simple, or nondiphiongized,i'there no ong oF lip movement during vowel production, asin the vowels the sor b/s, bat sto at Chapter 14 221