1.
Introduction
Global
Intermediate is the coursebook currently used in the second part of
the intermediate course at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, DF. The book is
filled with activities that focus on all four skills of language competence:
listening, reading, speaking and writing. However, when we carefully analyse
and test its use on a regular basis, we are able to confirm that some
activities fall short: the ones that focus on writing.
Although the book provides extra writing lessons (pp 16, 28, 40, 52, 64,
76, 88, 100, 112 and 124), it still does not equip students with the necessary
material to help them work on their writing skills within the regular lessons
carried out in the course. The intermediate course at Casa Thomas Jefferson
does not include those pages on its syllabus. As a result, the coursebook in
question cannot be sufficient in order to meet the needs of a skills-based
course that also has to focus on writing.
Effective and fruitful writing activities can be recognized in a
coursebook that is meaningful for the students who make use of it, a coursebook
that is genre-based, a coursebook that provides them with scaffolding and
planning for writing, a coursebook that contains good models and authentic
texts, and a coursebook that is furnished with follow-up activities.
2.
Background
The intermediate Course at Casa Thomas Jefferson is mostly an
environment for young students that range from the age of 13 to the age of 17.
The students at issue are characterized by having quite an amount of school
load and some extracurricular activities. They usually demonstrate more
facility with the passive skills, i.e. reading and listening. However, some of
them also struggle with those skills, besides speaking and writing. They are
also at a stage in which they are still forming social and academic
competencies, such as punctuality, responsibility and respect. Because of that,
teachers commonly have to deal with homework neglection and deviant behaviour.
Taking this audience into account, writing activities must be able to
catch students’ interest and prove their relevance and immediate applicability
to the students’ lives. As follows, I will point out specific criteria that
should be considered while examining the quality of the writing activities of a
coursebook and will also analyse Global
Intermediate in view of it.
3.
Literature Review
Many things must be considered when we think of what makes a language
teaching course good and effective. When it comes to teaching writing, there
are mainly five aspects that should be considered in an EFL skills-based
course: whether the approach is genre-based, the use of scaffolding, the use of
follow-up activities, the presence and usage of good modelling and, finally,
whether writing is meaningful and relevant to the students.
A. An approach to genres in writing
A genre-based approach to teaching writing is essential in order to
create language awareness in our students. As Reppen states (2002), after
analysing different types of texts and their distinct characteristics, students
are able to thrive as writers, assess their own pieces of writing, and engage
in peer-feedback more productively. According to her (p. 323), through
genre-guided activities, students manage to see different texts from different
perspectives, taking the writers’ purposes and the readers’ needs into account.
B. Scaffolding
Hyland (2007) affirms that scaffolding directly relates to interaction
between peers, which enables them to grasp the activities better. As claimed by
him (p. 158), as students interact and discuss the topic through scaffolding,
they develop an independence from their teacher’s “direct instruction”. Widdowson (1978)
also expresses the great value of scaffolding by describing it as a “gradual
approximation”. Students, therefore, become better writers when they are
“actively encouraged to follow through a series of preparatory steps”
(Scrivener, 1994, p. 157) producing then the final piece of writing.
C. Follow-up
Another important aspect about teaching writing is the implementation of
follow-up activities, that is, those that are done after the students have
produced their pieces of writing. The writing process is not finished, and the
students are encouraged to evaluate each other’s texts. Seow (2002) affirms
that that strategy is a means to stimulate a sense of responsibility in them.
D. Meaningful writing
Hyland (2007) also explains that the genre approach helps teachers plan
their classes around themes or like real-life activities. Writing in order to
specifically do or achieve something is what raises students’ interest and
makes them see a meaningful purpose in writing. As maintained by the professor,
this approach helps students learn beyond mere abilities and competencies; it
makes them assimilate contextual and social elements that involve one specific
genre.
E. Modelling
Finally, the use of good models and authentic material is another
extremely important aspect in teaching writing. Students benefit from being
exposed to real texts and from having authentic models that inspire and
encourage them to engage in writing. According to Al Azri and Al-Rashdi (2014),
authentic texts “expose students to real language”, “meet learners’ needs”,
“affect learners’ motivation positively” and “present authentic information
about culture”, amongst other reasons.
Conclusion
All the literature mentioned above concurs in regarding writing highly and
seeing it as a fundamental part of a language course. The various elements that
are necessary to compound high-quality teaching or determine a great coursebook
can be easily identified when it comes to writing. Such elements must be avidly
pursued in order to encourage and uphold a good practice of the teaching of
writing.
4.
Analysis of Data
When we bear in mind a skills-based course, we cannot overlook the skill
of writing. Successful writing relies on the fulfillment of certain criteria.
Coursebooks must be carefully analysed and questioned according to these
criteria so that we make sure that their use concerning writing is effective
and productive in a language course.
A. Meaningful material
The age group that uses the book and the interests that surround
students’ lives should be taken into account when taking a close look at the
coursebook. Global Intermediate has,
therefore, proven to be a book directed towards an older audience. Many
teachers at the school have stated that when they go through some lessons, such
as Unit 3, part 2 and Unit 5, part 2, the students tend to
react in the same way, with lack of enthusiasm and boredom. This is so because
young teenagers do not naturally have interest in energy sources or government
collocations (the central topics of the lessons mentioned above). When it comes
to the writing activities, this reality aggravates the problem, since students do
not have a sufficient stimulus to engage in the writing tasks. Assignments such
as writing a comment on an online science
magazine can be difficult and uninteresting for students at that age.
B. Genre-based material
Another aspect that should be appraised is whether the coursebook makes
use of genre-oriented tasks. Whether the activities within the lessons provide
students with contextualized tasks in which they can see the purpose of writing
is extremely important. When students are told to write solely to improve their
writing skills, the activity has an end in itself and becomes pointless from
their perspective. There has to be a purpose in writing that relates directly
to students’ lives and interests, and genre-based writing lessons are those
which deliver the context and the sense of reality that students need.
The writing tasks in Global Intermediate,
however, do not comprehend this strategy. The lesson tasks usually involve
forming questions, writing lists or a general comment or paragraph about
something. That means that students are not guided on how to write authentic
texts that are used in specific contexts.
C. Scaffolding and Planning
Good writing lessons also include scaffolding and planning. In other
words, the lessons have to naturally welcome students into the writing task,
rather than surprise them with an assignment that they are not ready to do. The
activities must be conducted in a way that the students are gradually prepared
for the assignment, and that is why instructions regarding planning must also
be part of the lesson.
Unfortunately, the lessons in Global
Intermediate do not bring scaffolding and planning strategies before the
writing tasks. The instructions just usually tell students to write a piece of
writing after they have discussed something that relates to the lesson, which
is not the necessary process that students have to go through so as to produce
a text with quality. Good scaffolding involves guiding students with regard to
the context, the purpose, the content and the form of the text, to put it
briefly. Also, the students are not given any orientation concerning outlining,
map-minding or other planning strategies.
D. Modelling with authentic texts
Since the writing tasks mostly orientate students to write a comment or
a paragraph, a lack of modelling with authentic texts can be spotted in Global Intermediate as well. Although
students are provided with catchy images and appealing layouts in the reading
activities that usually precede the ones on writing, they still do not have
great models for their own pieces of writing (predominantly comments and
paragraphs). After having read texts that somehow relate to the lessons, the
students are not encouraged to produce something similar to the only model that
has been given in the lesson.
E. Follow-up Activities
Finally, an effective coursebook that helps students work on their
writing skills must contain at least one effectual follow-up activity through
which pupils can give and get valuable peer-feedback. That is so because, otherwise,
the writing section of coursebooks will always end up becoming homework
assignments or assessments and students will never have the chance to actually
exchange knowledge and ideas with their peers. The activities that focus on
writing need to be made an essential part of the course and must be regarded by
teachers and students as highly as the others that emphasize different skills.
The writing activities within the lessons in Global Intermediate only instruct students to read their
compositions to each other and then say whether they agree with their peers.
That is not enough for the aim of developing students’ writing skills and
language awareness.
5.
Outcomes
Although Global Intermediate
does have a section entirely dedicated to writing after each unit, it does not
have writing activities within the lessons. Since the course carried out at
Casa Thomas Jefferson does not include such sections, it does not provide
students with effective and productive activities concerning the skill of
writing. It definitely lacks high-quality scaffolding and planning exercises,
as well as follow-up activities. It also does not contain meaningful and
appealing writing tasks when we consider the specific audience that makes use
of it. Finally, modelling and authentic texts are not always present as well,
which makes the students confused and unprepared to produce the pieces of
writing that are suggested through the lessons.
Therefore, looking only and closely at its writing activities, I
recommend the discontinuation of Global
Intermediate as the coursebook for the intermediate course at Casa Thomas
Jefferson.
References
Al Azri, R. and
Al-Rashdi, M. (2014). The Effect of Using Authentic Materials in Teaching.
International Journal of Science and Technology Research, 3(10), pp. 249-254.
Hyland, Ken. (2007) Genre pedagogy: Language, literacy and L2 writing
instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 148–164
Reppen, R.
(2002). A Genre-Based Approach to Content Writing Instruction. In J. Richards
& W. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of
Current Practice (pp. 321-327). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scrivener, Jim.
(1994). Learning Teaching. The Teacher Development Series Editor: Adrian
Underhill. Oxford, UK: Heinemann.
Seow, A. (2002).
The writing process and process writing. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya
(Eds.). Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp.
315-320). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Widdowson, H.
(1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
