Page 105 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Writing

2. How much and what will learners need to read when they grow up? Which
reading subskills will they mostly need in real life?
3. Examine some digital books on the internet.¹ Plan a lesson in which you
use a digital book with your learners.
4. Ask your colleagues or other teachers if they know of any successful FL
reading programmes. What kind of a reading programme would you in-
clude in your teaching and how would you do it?
5. Watch Carol Read do shared story reading. What are some of the teaching
tips she provides?

Writing
We usually start with developing reading and writing skills in tandem and in
both cases, it is important to progress slowly. At the beginning, writing is also
very much integrated with listening and speaking, the skills which are tar-
geted in the first years. Brewster et al. (2002) distinguish between two types
ofwritingin thelanguageclassroom.Oneis‘learningto write,’wherelearners
develop the ‘mechanical’ skills of writing, e.g. handwriting, spelling, punctu-
ation, accurate grammar and vocabulary. The second type is ‘writing to learn,’
where they are involved in free and creative writing with the focus on mean-
ing and expressing themselves.
There are many reasons why we need to develop writing as a skill. Through
writing, learners will also acquire new vocabulary and practice spelling as
well as language structures and other language features. Writing will provide
a meaningful context for language practice. The more they work on writing,
the better writers they will become. However, we should not neglect the two
fundamental reasons for writing, i.e. to communicate a message and to ex-
press yourself. If we develop writing as a means of communication, learners
will recognize its main purpose and be motivated to write. When learners
write for different audiences and not only for the teacher, they become aware
of the real-life reasons for writing.
Writing is perceived as a difficult skill to develop, especially with YLs, be-
cause of different reasons (Moon, 2008):

1. Writing is not acquired naturally like speaking; it is a complex skill one
needs to learn.
2. When listening to someone, we understand the meaning of the words
we hear with the help of body language and intonation, which are not
available in writing.

¹ E.g. https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

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