Page 113 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Writing

selves, write about their family, hobbies, their likes and dislikes, their school
days etc. When they write emails, they can also share photos of their pets and
families, schoolwork etc. If they exchange postcards, they can admire differ-
ent landscapes and discuss stamps in different countries.
Shin and Crandall (2014) propose a writing activity where learners design
photo autobiographies. They take photos of the things that are important in
their lives and create a photo book. Next to the photos, they write captions
briefly describing the events and people in the photographs. Another option
is for them to create an online class book, each contributing a few photos
with captions. They can exchange this class book with another class (Shin
and Crandall, 2014).

Reflection Point
1. How did you learn to write in English? What was difficult for you? What
kinds of texts did you write in the first years of your learning?
2. Take a look at a unit in a course book for the 4th or 5th grade. Find all the
activities that focus on writing. Which subskills of writing do they develop?
Which level are they at (text, sentence, word, letters/sounds)? Are they con-
trolled, guided or free?
3. Design an authentic writing task where learners write for the audience and
to express themselves. Make a list of real audiences for your students’ writ-
ing.
4. Conduct an interview with primary school learners of different ages. What
is their attitude towards writing in English? What kinds of writing activities
do they like? What do they find difficult in writing?
5. Watch Jodi Crandall’s webinar on how to develop reading and writing with
YLs. What are some of the writing activities she suggests?

Key Takeaways
• Exposure to the written word (e.g. noticeboard, displays, posters, a reading
corner) is part of developing reading and writing from the beginning of
learning an FL onwards.
• Extensive reading develops learners’ reading skills, vocabulary and overall
academic achievement.
• Writing in an FL classroom needs to be purposeful and have a real audi-
ence.
• Writing in an FL is difficult for YLs, because it involves many subskills and it
is abstract, therefore teachers need to plan it carefully, and offer the learn-
ers support and a lot of practice.
• Developing writing strategies with learners, such as planning their work,
considering their audience, how to draft, revise and edit their work helps
them in developing writing skills.

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