On Wearing Two Hats: Teaching & Responding to Writing

This morning I had the opportunity of engaging with quite an interesting and energetic group of bright individuals as part of our institute's training of newly-hired teachers. The goal was to discuss the teaching of writing to our EFL learners, what it is that an effective pre-writing lesson should entail, as well as ways of responding to students' writings. It was a hands-on session, with some initial discussion and brainstorming of lesson stages with a specific writing prompt in mind, which was then followed by their response to and correction of an authentic writing sample. The idea was to familiarize teachers with the kind of response to writing that we believe to be in keeping with the principle that writing is a recurrent process, non-linear in its creative nature, and the very expression of one's voice.

Roll up your sleeves and let's get down to business

Teachers worked in smaller groups and were asked to respond to and provide corrective feedback to a first draft sample of a five-paragraph essay written by an upper-intermediate level learner. Along with the sample, they received a copy of our correction and proofreading symbols, as well as a scoring rubric by means of which they'd grade that first draft. They immediately set out to accomplish the task, industriously reading the piece, red pens in hand, and... Stop. Wait a minute. Do you feel an urge to begin crossing out and underlining spelling mistakes and wrong verb tense use? You do, don't you?

Step away from the red pen

Before you unleash your full corrective-feedback-giving potential, put on a different hat. Be a reader. Respond to your students' content and ideas as a real person. Familiarize them with that sense of having an audience. We use language to communicate, be it in spoken or written form. Let them know that you are truly listening to them. Try to find at least a couple of aspects in their writing that are worth a compliment. Relate to their ideas, share a little about your own experience by commenting that maybe you once felt the same way as they did facing a certain situation in your own life, and that you know how wonderful or how difficult it must have been for them to go through it, as well. Empathize. Connect. Engage. 

Respect individual stylistic choices

It's always a challenge to provide corrective feedback without stifling the writer's voice. What I mean is, are you (over)correcting to the point of forcing the student to write as you would have if expressing a similar idea in written form? Of course there are instances of L1 interference that must be addressed, such as word order issues to name one, but we teachers walk a fine line between pointing our students in the right direction and simply imposing our own style on them. Keep an awareness of the fact that your students are experimenting with language (a foreign one, as a matter of fact), and that they are, knowingly or not, in their own quests to finding their voice. Cherish. Allow. Enable. 

Sounding curious as opposed to judgemental

Instead of saying something like "this paragraph is too short. Please develop your ideas here." how about offering something more in the lines of "I wonder if you could tell me more about this experience/situation." or even "how did you feel?" and "what did you do next?" The point is that by asking a simple question, you may elicit just the response you want from a student, instead of making a direct comment that might come across as judgemental, in that it is an affirmation made by you, the teacher, who is supposedly the knowledge authority on all subjects language-wise. Don't point fingers. Ask more questions. Provoke. Entice. Foster.

This set of guidelines sprang up from this group's engagement and reflections during our training session, so that gives you a pretty good idea of how lucky we are to have gathered such a great collection of curious and avid learner-teachers. Thank you all, Casa newbies, for inspiring me to write this piece.

Welcome aboard, guys!

Clarissa Bezerra

The Culture of 'Busyness'

Is 'busy' your middle name? 

Read this...and think again. 

Over the recess period, I spent loads of quality time with my family. Having decided not to travel, not physically at least, I took the time to connect with people who had something to say. I began by reactivating my Twitter account. And so my journey began...

On the second day of the new year, I came across this Tweet by Dean Shareski (@shareski), which had been Retweeted by Alec Couros (@courosa):

The 'anti-busy' bit caught my eye. I decided to check it out. In his post, Shareski expresses his annoyance at the word 'busy' and how often it has been thrown around in day-to-day conversation. I instantly thought about - guess who - all of us, teachers. We are definitely a kind that has a lot on our plate, all the time, so you might imagine how it felt to read the following: 

"I'm not suggesting your life isn't full but for the most part 
it's the life you've chosen. You can argue that sometimes 
it's not, but you decided to have kids, you choose to work where you work, 
and you choose to be a good person and help others out." 

Dean Shareski

Shareski then argues that many of the people who constantly declare their 'busyness' may actually come across as wanting to bring others down, as if not being busy all the time meant one of the following three options (or all three of them): a) there's something wrong with you, or b) you're clearly not doing your job right, or c) you're just plain lazy. 

I was blown away by Shareski's honesty. Reading his post would be my first 'Wow' moment of the day. I wanted to read more on the subject, so I decided to check out his other suggestion - a great article by Tyler Wardis. In it, Wardis eloquently explains "why busy isn't respectable anymore", candidly admitting how being busy actually used to make him feel important, valuable, needed. I was compelled to read on. 

According to Wardis, there has recently been what he calls "a widespread frustration with the perpetual busyness of life," which has been raising more awareness of, as well as questions about the issue of 'Busyness'. He ventures into giving some answers himself, which for me turned his article into a must-read, but not before sharing a very interesting experience carried out by a friend of his, and finishing by proposing a challenge. 

There I was, on day two of the new year, and I'd already had two 'Wow' moments thanks to my PLN. In the spirit of new beginnings, I invite you to read what these guys have to say about the culture of 'Busyness'. I want to thank @courosa, @shareski, and @tylerwardis for the inspiration. 

I have made up my mind to take on the challenge proposed by Tyler Wardis.

How about you? 

Clarissa Bezerra

@Clarissamfb