Teaching speaking through discussion

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE

IVAN FRANKO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LVIV

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

Teaching speaking through discussion

COURSE PAPER

PRESENTED BY

Olga Baran

a fourth year student

of the English department

SUPERVISED BY

Larysa Viktorivna Lemeshchuk

an assistant professor

of the English department

LVIV 2009

Contents

Introduction

1. Chapter 1. Fundamental considerations in teaching writing essays

1.1 The importance of writing essays

1.2 Basic principles of teaching writing essays: writing techniques and stages

1.3.organization of the essays. Essay structure

2. Chapter 2

2.1 Types of essays. Essay samples

2.2 Punctuation. Word choice

2.3 Linking words and phrases

2.4 Plagiarism

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Written communication has become extremely important for interaction in the modern world with the instant technological development. Recently writing assessments and essays have become a vital part of a formal education. Secondary students are taught to structure their compositions in order to improve their writing skills. Both in secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery and comprehension of material. Students are asked to explain, comment on or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay.

What is an essay? Essay is a short piece of writing on a particular subject which presents the author’s point of view. It is an organized set of ideas and reflections. This presentation of views must be done in a logical and factual manner with the use of the first person often discouraged. The leading essayist Aldous Huxley defines essay in the following way - “Like the novel, the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic. By tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece, and it is therefore impossible to give all things full play within the limits of a single essay. But a collection of essays can cover almost as much ground, and cover it almost as thoroughly, as can a long novel”. The word "essay" originated from French word "essai" which means "effort, sketch". It reflects the essence of this notion. It is a personal attempt to give a challenging sketch on certain issues. Every attempt is different and presents versatile ideas, but people must not be afraid of writing even knowing that it is too complicated to express themselves in a proper way.

Essay should be structured in various sections that make it easy for the readers to read and follow the author’s thoughts clearly. To show your grasp of the ideas studied learners have to express them in their own words. Writing essays is not the easy task. Nevertheless, it is a good way to stimulate learning and critical thinking that makes writing a valuable part of any language course. It enables learners to display the skills and abilities which they possess and remaining an important method of assessment, helps to discriminate between students, to test their intellectual capabilities. Raimes points out “Writing helps students to learn. Firstly, it reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that teachers have been teaching their students. Secondly, when students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned. Thirdly, when students write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language (14, p.58)

Professor Roy Wilkinson has identified a pyramid of skills which teachers try to test with the help of essay assignment.

Tarvers explains that “Writing is a powerful instrument of thought. In the act of composing, writers learn about themselves and their world and communicate their insights to others. Writing confers the power to grow personally and to effect change in the world" (18, p.45) Moreover, the skill of writing essays is an essential tool in achieving the desirable grade in the courses studied. The basic essay-writing skills are not that difficult to acquire. The reason why so many students fail to do this is that not enough attention has been paid to teaching them. It is inevitable that schools, colleges and universities spend most of their time teaching the core subject-matter of a course, but hardly any time in advising students how to put their ideas down on paper in the form of an essay. Hedge points out that writing has been a neglected area of English language teaching for some years (11, p.101). However, when people write down an account of ideas for others to read, they have to explain themselves particularly carefully. The leaps made while talking are not allowed. This makes writing probably the most challenging aspect of studying. White and Amdt promote that “Writing is a form of problem-solving which involves such processes as generating ideas, discovering a voice with which to write, planning, goal-setting, monitoring and evaluating what is going to be written as well as what has been written and searching for language with which to express exact meanings” (20, p.92).

The difficulties in writing essays as well as the process of teaching writing essays show the object of this course paper. The subject lies in the set of skills and hints for teaching learners to write better compositions. This coursework comprises the following tasks:

· to specify the structure of the essay and stages in writing it;

· to clarify the skills and habits necessary for the learners to write properly, clearly and persuasively, and to present the viewpoint forcefully in writing;

· to show the importance of practicing writing topic and concluding sentences, organizing the paragraphs coherently, using appropriate vocabulary, transitional devices and grammar;

· to apply key writing structures to learners’ writing;

· to develop strategies for writing, revising, and editing texts that are based on audience and purpose;

· to make students aware of the impact of their choice of words, sentences and organizational techniques on the effectiveness of writing.

Learning solid essay writing skills while in school is the foundation for even the most basic education. Thus, many students do not have the slightest idea on how to begin a creative writing and how to express their thoughts. It is important for learners not to suppress their ideas, they should think widely, in various directions. The practical value lies in helping people to order their essays, to display their knowledge in the well-structured way due to the standards of essay writing, to provoke the learners to write and to believe in their own abilities, the originality and validity of their thoughts. In addition to this, essay writing is a part of a sequence designed to develop specific discourse skills.

1. Chapter 1. Fundamental considerations in teaching writing essays1.1 The importance of writing essays

Language learning requires mastering the four basic skills a language consists of. Thus there is not only the awareness of grammatical, lexical or syntactic rules needed but the writing process demands also mental power of the writer. Writing is an effective tool to use for different purposes from sharing ideas, corresponding to persuading others. Through writing people articulate their ideas in another way than in speaking, their written product can be much more expressive and powerful. Written works are permanent; they may have an impact much later in time. Tarvers claims that “The purposes for writing vary widely, from discovering the writer’s own feelings, to persuading others to a course of action, recreating experience imaginatively, reporting the results of observation, and more” (18, p.48). Having such potential, learners should be taught all the necessary rules and conventions of writing as a skill to express themselves in the most appropriate way. Therefore writing deserves an equal part in the classroom of learning language skills. Nowadays more attention is paid to speaking and listening, developing writing skills seem to be a deprived area. White mentions that “For some time, under the influence of the audio-lingual approach to language teaching, it has been conventional wisdom to regard speech as being of primary importance, with writing being placed a poor second. Writing was regarded as being a somewhat inferior form of the language” (20, p.57). It is no longer seen as simply a means to retell or recount information, but as a unique way to internalize and expand upon specific knowledge, to retain the information, integrate it into the existing knowledge. Neither a multiple choice test nor short answer quiz can provide students with the opportunities to develop the kind of critical evaluative skills a thorough writing assignment can. Robert Kellogg states " (Writing) is a vehicle for expanding and transforming one's own knowledge base. (It) not only demands thinking, it is also a means for thinking. By writing about a subject, one learns what one thinks about the subject. This property of transforming knowledge is a fundamental component of writing skill" (12, p.214). Writing essays teaches students to research, plan, organize and structure their activities.

1.2 Basic principles of teaching writing essays: writing techniques and stages

Writing is an exercise of mind requiring the mastery of techniques anyone can learn. While one system may work better for some and worse for others; there are several general rules to stick to. There are many aspects that a student will have to keep in mind. The first important thing to do is to examine the title of the topic. It can be assigned or not. Sometimes it is easier to have the topic given by the teacher. On the other hand, it may be an advantage to take the topic you want. Both have their pros and cons because there are so many things to write about that you may get lost. When the topic has been assigned, you have some definite sphere to work on. Each topic can be seen from various viewpoints. The student, however, should choose the one which is neither too narrow (it will not have enough ideas to write about) nor too broad. Medecine is too general. You can take only one aspect to discuss - Euthanasia in medical practice. Then you must think about the purpose and the audience of the essay. The writer should understand the key words which will help to gather thoughts, to decide on the writing style and give some hints. It is a good rule always to write the title of the essay across the top of the opening page. It reminds you what you are supposed to be doing. An essay can be good in almost every other way and may be judged poor because it ignores the issues presented in the title. You are never just asked to write all you know about a subject, or simply describe something. You are set a specific problem to reflect upon in the light of what you have been studying. Everything you say in the essay should be relevant to that task. You have to convince your readers that the point has some bearing on the title.

Successful academic writing takes much more than just excellent writing skills and understanding of the topic. The whole secret lies in proper organization of an essay and following a certain writing procedures. The essay goal is to convey information, including the fact that you can write well. But it will not be achieved if the readers do not understand the first few sentences or paragraphs, and stop reading, or if they finish reading but fail to grasp the message. Learning how to be a clear and accurate writer will help to make your essay readable and understandable. There are some guidelines which show how to clarify writing. Moreover, it is important to recognize that you must commit yourself to a process. A finished paper is the result of the complex interaction of activities that include several stages of development (see Table1), but some of them can be omitted. Nevertheless, these stages are believed to reflect generally how successful writing develops.

Stages of writing