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173DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES Zokirova Z.T.
Zokirova Zulfiya Tursunovna - Senior Teacher of English, DEPARTMENT OF TEACHING LANGUAGES, MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCTION FACULTY, FERGANA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, FERGANA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article under discussion reveals the importance of developing writing skills in teaching foreign languages. The author of the article suggests several interesting strategies that improve writing skills of the learners.
Keywords: writing skills, message, needs, balance, free, revised writing, praise, challenge, outside the classroom.
Good writing conveys a meaningful message and uses English well, but the message is more important than correct presentation. If you can understand the message or even part of it, your student has succeeded in communicating on paper and should be praised for that. For many adult ESL learners, writing skills will not be used much outside your class. This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenged to write, but you should consider their needs and balance your class time appropriately. Many adults who do not need to write will enjoy it for the purpose of sharing their thoughts and personal stories, and they appreciate a format where they can revise their work into better English than if they shared the same information orally [1, p.p. 1-4].
Two writing strategies you may want to use in your lessons are free writing and revised writing. Free writing directs students to simply get their ideas onto paper without worrying much about grammar, spelling, or other English mechanics. In fact, the teacher can choose not to even look at free writing pieces. To practice free writing, give students 5 minutes in class to write about a certain topic, or ask them to write weekly in a journal. You can try a dialog journal where students write a journal entry and then give the journal to a partner or the teacher, who writes
another entry in response. The journals may be exchanged during class, but journal writing usually is done at home. The main characteristic of free writing is that few errors are corrected by the teacher, which relieves students of the pressure to perform and allows them to express themselves more freely.
Revised writing, also called extended or process writing is a more formal activity in which students must write a first draft, then revise and edit it to a final polished version, and often the finished product is shared publicly. You may need several class sessions to accomplish this. Begin with a pre-writing task such as free writing, brainstorming, discussion of a topic, making a timeline, or making an outline. Pairs or small groups often work well for pre-writing tasks. Then give the students clear instructions and ample time to write the assignment. In a class, you can circulate from person to person asking, "Do you have any questions?" Many students will ask a question when approached but otherwise would not have raised a hand to call your attention. Make yourself available during the writing activity; don't sit at a desk working on your next lesson plan. Once a rough draft is completed, the students can hand in their papers for written comment, discuss them with you face to face, or share them with a partner, all for the purpose of receiving constructive feedback. Make sure ideas and content are addressed first; correcting the English should be secondary. Finally, ask students to rewrite the piece. They should use the feedback they received to revise and edit it into a piece they feel good about. Such finished pieces are often shared with the class or posted publicly, and depending on the assignment, you may even choose to 'publish' everyone's writing into a class booklet.
Writing, though, should not be viewed as an activity that happens only within a classroom's walls. Teachers need to support students in the development of writing lives, habits, and preferences for life outside school. We already know that many students do extensive amounts of self-sponsored writing: emailing, keeping journals or doing creative projects, instant messaging, making Web sites, blogging and so on. As much as possible, instruction should be geared toward making sense in a
life outside of school, so that writing has ample room to grow in individuals' lives. It is useful for teachers to consider what elements of their curriculum they could imagine students self-sponsoring outside of school. Ultimately, those are the activities that will produce more writing.
Writing and reading are related. People who read a lot have a much easier time getting better at writing. In order to write a particular kind of text, it helps if the writer has read that kind of text. In order to take on a particular style of language, the writer needs to have read that language, to have heard it in her mind, so that she can hear it again in order to compose it.
Writing can also help people become better readers. In their earliest writing experiences, children listen for the relationships of sounds to letters, which contributes greatly to their phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge. Writers also must learn how texts are structured, because they have to create them. The experience of plotting a short story, organizing a research report, or making line breaks in a poem permits the writer, as a reader, to approach new reading experiences with more informed eyes [2, p.p. 34-59].
Additionally, reading is a vital source of information and ideas. For writers fully to contribute to a given topic or to be effective in a given situation, they must be familiar with what previous writers have said. Reading also creates a sense of what one's audience knows or expects on a topic.
The ability to write is may be one of the greatest human abilities after the ability to speak. That's why the English teacher should pay a great attention to its developing.
References
1. Teaching Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education:
Vol. 3: Iss. 1. Article 1, 2014. P.p. 1-4.
2. Harmer J., 2007. The practice of English language teaching.
Cambridge. P.p. 34-59.
