Job Discussion Forums

[sidjameson]

Compared to my conversation classes I am not happy with my writing classes. This is my second year at them and I really do want to raise their quality.
My students are Japanese university students. I get them talking, laughing, volunteering in conversation classes(rare in Japan, but they are a great bunch) but my writing classes definitely lack any fizz.

Does anybody have a suggestion for a good textbook (I inherited Littlejohn's "Writing 2 and 3" CUP), a book on how to teach writing, a web site with ideas for classes or even some good ideas themselves?

I am desperate to make this a fun class as much as possible and I know the students would respond.

Are there indeed any fun games/activities out there?

Pre-int, Int level

[Gordon]

I am using Weaving it together, by Thomson. They have 3 levels, it is a reading/writing coursebook and there is also a supplementary video by CNN. It is interesting for students and more importantly for the teacher . Probably too late to change the book for you though, should have asked this a few months ago.

[surrealia]

Here are some links to activities you might want to try:


http://www.hltmag.co.uk/mar01/teach.htm

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59605&docid=146552

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59452&docid=146617

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59444&docid=146517

[Glenski]

"writing class" is about as general as saying you want to "teach English".

What sort of writing? There are tons of books (mostly bad ones that I've seen, anyway) out there for various purposes.

And, who are these Japanese students? History majors? Chemistry majors? Economics majors? First year, fourth year, grad students?

[surrealia]

Also remember that reading and writing are closely related. I would give them some reading practice from time to time.

[John Hall]

If you have been someone who excels at teaching speaking and listening, switching to teaching writing can sometimes feel like hitting a wall. How can you put any pizzazz into it? Suddenly, the classroom is so deathly quiet, and students are falling asleep!

Speaking and listening classes are centered around the people in the classroom, but writing classes are centered around the texts that the students are writing. If the students have the opportunity to write about something interesting about themselves, then things are not so dull. But a lot of writing tasks can be quite dull, especially if you have to teach business writing. I agree with another poster here that it would help us if the OP could tell us just exactly what type of writing he or she has to teach.

[sidjameson]

double post, sorry.

[sidjameson]

[Jetgirly]

My question for you would be what are you looking for in good writing? Is this an "Academic Writing" course where the students are learning/reviewing how to write an academic paper? Or is an English course where you're primarily concerned with mistakes relating to spelling, grammar and readability?

If I were in your shoes I would probably stick a blank rubric on the OHP one day and have the students work with me to fill it in, creating a rubric for writing good [essays, letters, emails, etc.]. I often use http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=NewRubric&module=Rubistar&PHPSESSID=65aa7839d15c4478516b197c8a444e9e for rubric ideas and then modify it to suit my needs. Once you've created this "official" rubric you can then have the students peer-edit one another's writing individually before sharing their editing with a classmate.

I also like to give my students the three-point essay format (intro, three body paragraphs, conclusion) and a thesis statement, then have them brainstorm the three points they would use to support their argument. Once you've got the three points students can work together to put their points in a logical order then write the essay for homework. You can provide a sample of a poorly-written essay (obviously created by yourself, not one of the students) on the OHP and discuss improvements as a class.

I think you should try to get more writing done outside of class, and use your class time for activities that actually benefit from the group setting.

[John Hall]

[globalnomad2]

That's right. Although, as in my transition ("bridge") writing class, which emphasizes the research paper, if there is little writing done in class, that means the teacher is doing a lot of talking about writing and the students are doing a lot of short tasks such as sentence-combining, presentations on different facets of term-paper research and preparation, etc.

[guangho]

[John Hall]