Writing

The writing process can be epitomized in the following quotes:
 AI believe in miracles in every area of life except writing. The only thing that produces good writing is hard work.   Isac Bashevis Singer.

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he will eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer.  Ray Bradbury.

Exercise the writing muscle everyday, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry, whatever. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.   Jane Yolen.

People on the outside think there is something magical about writing, that they go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit back on the type writer and you work, and that it is all there is to it.  Harlon Ellison.

Words are a lens to focus one's mind. Ayn Rand.

Writing is its own reward. Henry Miller.

Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of ending. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

It is perfectly okay to write garbage- as long as you edit brilliantly. C.J.Cherryh.

Half of my life is an act of revision. John Irving.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway.

Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities

A very interesting book about using dictation in a creative way is Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities.

The book is full of interesting activities all related to dictation. The is very interesting as it raises teachers' attention to:
Who gives the dictation? To whom?
Who controls the pace?
Who chooses or creates the dictation?


Two interesting activities are the mutual dictation and elicited dictation ( like reading a text on fast food and filling in a chart according to the dictation.)

The dictation can add life to a class that is about to sleep and give students' motivation.

Listening

Listening is a skill that can be developed. A way to make listening interesting is to make it personalized. This can be done through pre- or post- discussion of the listening.

 Decrease the teacher talking time.
Ask instruction checking questions and concept checking questions.

Praise the students for their efforts.

Remember the Pre-, During, and Post- activities.

Heinemann Hits is a very interesting book that gives us a lot of helpful ideas using songs.

You can use the listening as a warm up.

You should prepare the students before the listening.

You can also use the listening while teaching reading or grammar to introduce or enforce what students learned.

You can use the map activity to introduce the students to the place the singer comes from.

Active listening is what we aim at. Give them a sheet of paper to fill in while they are listening to a presentation or a lecture.

There can be more than one recording and they can listen to each other recording.

Students can fill surveys before or after the listening.

Hats Activities

Hats can be used to introduce a number of activities. Hats of fears, hopes, and expectations. It can be used to introduce vocabulary set they need to know.

They can be used to introduce pop up questions or pop up version s of quizzes.

Feedback

On Feedback 

  Feedback is of two types: ego involving (focusing on the person's position in the class), and task involving. Teachers should provide tasks involving feedback instead of ego feedback. Good feedback causes thinking When a student faces a task he makes a choice: to protect him/herself or to engage and grow. If a student protects himself we have to give him feedback that he/she should try the language.  We must always make learning within a class a win-win situation. Every student needs to understand that their progress is as important as the progress of the next student.

If a teacher wants to make a huge impact when giving feedback, a teacher should refrain from giving ego feedback which will only make the students feel good or more elite than the other students.  Instead, teachers are supposed to give task feedback to help the students learn and be better at their task. 

Not giving feedback is better than giving ego feedback.

Remember: 

• Feedback can be interpreted as either based on an activity or on one’s sense of self-worth.
•    Feedback is an important factor in progress.
•   Grade comparisons can effect confidence.

 

Feedback also involves:

• Purpose and Forms of Assessment
•  Measuring student’s learning and progress.
• Improving teaching strategies.
• Improving the quality of teaching programs. 
• Raising students' achievement. 
•  Reporting on students' progress.
•  Encouraging intrinsic student motivation with feedback. 
• Raising students' awareness of their progress.

Situations and experiences That Threaten Students' Learning

The kinds of situations and experiences (internal and external) that potentially threaten students and their capacity to learn:

•  Not interested in subject
•  Don't like the teacher
•  Doesn’t / didn’t understand something
• Doesn’t understand for what purpose this subject is necessary and if it will be useful in pupil’s current or future life
•  Have some personal problems (e.g. with peers, at home etc.)
•  Too distractive environment (especially with mobile phones and at university, with notebooks too). This can seriously hamper the learning process.

Matching Cards

Print in special paper and cut the cards. Students have to match the card with the image and the word. As an extra activity, you can ask students to make up sentences or start up a discussion related to the activity. Many ESL websites matching card games and you can create your own.