English TMP LE & ECLPE

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY

Picture observation and interpretation

Picture 1. Pre- primary learners                                                   Picture 2. Primary school learners

Observe the above pictures and answer the following questions:

a. Talk about the main activities which are being done in both pictures.

b. What are the materials used by pupils in the second pictures and the role of the teacher?

c. Explain the importance of those activities illustrated in an English lesson.

6.1. Recall on topics related to writing lessons

6.1a. Learning activity

Read the following paragraph and answer related questions.

In Reception early grade, children will start to learn how to form letters correctly. They will be encouraged to use their knowledge of phonics to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. By the end of lower primary school, they will be expected to write sentences and simple paragraphs which can be read by themselves and others. In upper primary, they will continue to learn how to organize paragraphs and will be expected to use what they know about grammar in their writing and to read through what they have written to find ways to improve it. Moreover, pupils will as well learn to write for a range of purposes, compositions, stories and information texts.

a. Identify the topics which do you find challenging to you.

b. Explain the importance of writing activities in primary schools.

Notes

Learning to write is one of the most important thing that a child at primary school will learn. Pupils use their writing in almost all other subjects of the curriculum. Good writing also gives children a voice to share their ideas with the world. For a pupil, learning to write can be a tricky business, not least because good writing involves handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation not to mention what we want to write and who we are writing for. Writing is a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion with signs and symbols. In most languages, writing is a complement of speech or spoken language.

Again, writing is not a language, but a tool used to make language readable. Within a language system, writing as well as speech, relies on many components of language structure such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with added dependency on a system of signs or symbols. The result of writing is called text and the recipient of text is called a reader. The following paragraphs present different levels of primary and what student teachers should recall.

Lower primary

 Recall on knowledge related to how pupils are taught to write words and sentences describing different situations/ contexts contained in all the units (P1-P3).

Upper primary

Recall on knowledge related to how pupils are taught to write sentences, paragraphs, compositions, and short stories that describe different situations/ contexts contained in all the units (P4-P6).

6. 2. Principles of writing and qualities of a good writer

6. 2. 1. Principles of writing

6.2.1.a. Learning activity

Read the following writing activity set by a teacher to develop learners’ writing skills and state-specific strategies that he/she uses in this situation:

Referring to the dialogue below, think about a place that would be interesting for your class to visit. Discuss this visit with your classmates. Remember to give some reasons for visiting the place. Write a dialogue in which two classmates ask each other questions about the planned visit. Give your dialogue to one of the pairs in your class to check mistakes within.

Notes:

Everyone can be a good writer. Writers follow specific principles when writing.

These are:

1) Having an objective: Think before you write. What’s your goal? Make sure you fully understand the assignment. Are you writing a one-paragraph executive summary or a five-page report? Try answering this question: What specifically do I want the reader to know, think, or do?

2) Outlining ideas: Write down the ideas or points you want to cover. Why? This helps you get started in identifying the key ideas you want to discuss. If you have trouble getting started, try discussing your ideas with someone else. “Kicking an idea around” often helps you clarify your objective and fine-tune what you are trying to accomplish.

3) Organizing ideas: Just as it is difficult to find what you want in a messy, disorganized desk drawer, it’s hard to find important ideas in a poorly organized message. Here are a few ways you can organize your ideas based on the following criteria:

 Importance – Begin with the most important piece of information and then move to the next most important. 

Chronological order – Describe what happened first, second, third, ... then last. Facts or events are arranged according to the moment they took place.

Problem-Solution – Define the problem, then describe possible alternatives or the solution you recommend.

Question-Answer – State a question and then provide your answer.

Organize your ideas so the reader can easily follow your argument or the point you are trying to get across.

4) Backing it up. Have an opinion but back it up – support with data. There are a number of ways you can support your ideas, including explanations, examples, facts, personal experiences, stories, statistics, and quotations. It’s best to use a combination of approaches to develop and support your ideas.

5) Separating main ideas. Each paragraph should have one main point or idea captured in a topic sentence. The topic sentence is normally the first sentence in the paragraph. Each paragraph should be presented either in block with skipped line before the next one or started with indentation without having to skip a line before starting the next paragraph.

6) Writing complete sentences. When talking about people, a sentence can be about someone doing something – taking action. That someone may be a manager, employee, customer, etc. The “doing something – taking action” can include mental processes such as thinking, evaluating, and deciding, or physical actions such as writing and talking. A good rule to practice is to have subjects closely followed by their verbs.

7) Use short sentences. Sentences should be a maximum of 12 to 15 words in length. According to the American Press Institute, sentences with 15 or fewer words are understood 90% of the time. Sentences with eight or fewer words are understood 100% of the time.

8) Be precise and accurate. Words like “large,” “small,” “as soon as possible,” “they,” “people,” “teamwork,” and “customer focus” are vague and imprecise. The reader may interpret these words to mean something different than what you intended. Reduce communication breakdowns by being specific and precise. Define terms as neededas the reader may not understand certain acronyms and abbreviations.

9) Use punctuation appropriately. Use for example a comma to separate the elements in a series of three or more items. His favourite colours are red, white, and blue. Use a comma to set off introductory elements. After coffee and donuts, the meeting will begin. Use a comma to separate adjectives. That tall, distinguished, good-looking professor teaches history.

10) Use the correct word. Here are several words that cause confusion.

–You’re is a contraction for “you are.” Your means possession, such as “your coat.”

–It’s is a contraction for “it is.” Its indicates possession.

–Their means possession/ownership- “their house.” There means location. They’re is a contraction for “they are.”

11) Be concise. It is inappropriate to use multiple words that mean or say the same thing. For example, consider the following:

–Wordy; My personal beliefs… Beliefs are personal, so just state, my beliefs…

–Wordy; I decided to paint the machine grey in colour. Grey is a colour, so just state; I decided to paint the machine grey.

12) Numbers. When using numbers in the body of your paper, spell out numbers one through nine, such as “Three men decided…” When using numbers 10 or above it’s proper to write the number, such as “The report indicated 68 customers…”

13) Have a conclusion. Would you really enjoy watching a movie or sporting event that had no conclusion? No. The conclusion ties your points together. The reader wants to know the final score – the bottom line message.

14) Edit your work. Read what you have written several times.

– On your first reading, focus on the organization and sentence structures. Shorten long sentences. Cross out unnecessary words and phrases. Reorganize material as needed.

– Read it again and make sure commas, quotation marks are used appropriately and that there is a punctuation mark at the end of every sentence.

– Read it a third time and focus on word choice. Are there certain words that are vague or unclear? Replace them with specific words.

– Read what you have written aloud to yourself or to a friend to see if he or she (and you) can understand it and improve it in any way. A significant part of good writing involves editing. Very few people can sit down and write a perfect paragraph on their first try. It requires multiple rewrites.

- You could do peer editing to better your essay.

15) Get help. There are several web sites that can help you improve your writing. Check out the following: · www.hodu.com has useful articles on business communications · www.dictionary.com helps with spelling and making sure you’re using the words correctly, also has links to lots of other resources.

6.2. 2. Qualities of a good writer

6.2.2.a. Learning activity

Based on what you already know about writing, what do you think makes a good writer?

Notes

Is it true that anyone can write? True, anyone can write, but that doesn’t make him/her a writer, leave alone a good writer. In order to be called a good writer, certain qualities are required:

1. Love of writing. This is the most important factor. Unless there is the love and passion for writing, one can never produce a good piece. The more intense the passion, the better the writing.

2. Love of words. This is not the same as the love of writing. Love of words means having a good vocabulary and understanding not only their meanings, but also the correct usage of words and their connotations. It is this love of words that makes a writer select the right words, and it is this choice of words that make an impact on the readers.

3. Good grammatical skills. This is an obvious one. We all know how bad imperfect grammar can leave a bad impression. For example, incorrect punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence.

4. Creativity. This is another important quality. This skill introduces the writer to a sea of ideas that are shaped on paper. Even a non-fiction writer needs imagination to make his/her writing lucid.

5. Observation. Good writers have a knack of observing people and things, and then mentally storing these observations to reproduce later in their writings.

6. Self-motivation. We all go through periods of difficulties and mental blocks. A good writer never waits for someone else to come inspire him/ her. He/she is able to motivate himself/herself, is always confident and is able to come up with ideas.

7. Professionalism. A good writer always has a professional approach to writing. This means that a writer should always take his/her work seriously and must be able to learn every aspect of writing. He/she must be able to understand the market and offer readers material that they wish to read. If an individual has these seven essential qualities, then that person can be called a good writer.

6.2.3. Objectives of writing

• Recognize and use correctly letters of the alphabet and theirphonemic representation.

• Write down and use words, phrases, clauses and sentences correctly.

• Use different sentence structures correctly.

• Express ideas in continuous writing.

• Use punctuation marks appropriately in their written work.

• Write down dictated content.

• Use correct tone and diction in their written work.

• Use different registers and genres to express themselves in writing.

• Paraphrase and summarize what is heard and read.

6.2.4. Difficulties of writing

Some pupils experience difficulties in understanding what is expected in continuous writing. Hence, they need help with choice, planning and arrangement of content, which we refer to as content organization. Allow the pupils know that a good writer plans and organizes before they start writing. Coe and Rycroft (1982:2) outline the following as the reasons why a learner’s writing may be difficult to understand as a result of the difficulties in writing. You should ensure these problems are eliminated in the learner’s writing.

Why are there difficulties in writing?

Here are some of the main reasons of pupils’ set back in writing:

• The sentences may not have clear punctuation: there will be commas and full stops without any good reason, or there may be no punctuation where there should be.

• The ideas may not have been presented in an order that easily makes sense to the reader. The relation between the ideas may not be clear because of the absence, or inappropriate use, of linking words and phrases.

• The writer’s attitude to what is being written may not be clear; is the writer describing, suggesting or criticizing something.

• The ideas may not be grouped together into distinct paragraphs or the learner may begin particularly every sentence on a new line.

• A text may contain ideas that are not really relevant to what the writer wants to express, or the writer may find it difficult to think of enough ideas. (Coe and Rycroft, 1983:2)

• Pupils may not have correct grammatical structures and constructions 

6.3. Techniques of teaching writing skills

6.3.a. Learning activity

Based on your knowledge about writing, discuss the techniques that a language teacher can use to boost learners’ writing skills.

Notes:

Writing is a complex skill which most students actually need in order to successfully go through college. Because everything is based on writing during academic years, a student who possesses good writing skills will automatically do better at almost everything. Exams, essays, assignments, and so on.

As a teacher, your role is to help each and every pupil improve themselves, acquire new skills, and become a better individual by the end of their time spent in school. What most teachers don’t actually realize is that they should be carrying way more responsibility when it comes to helping students improve their writing skills.

In this summary, we’ll talk about some important tips on how to motivate and instruct your students. If you follow these tips, you’ll soon notice great improvements in your students’ writing skills.

1. Encourage good writing

Some teachers expect good results, but they never do anything to motivate their students. Stress the fact that good, thoughtful, and clear writing will be greatly rewarded. Let your students know that bonus points will be available for those who make greater efforts to express themselves better on paper.

2. A lot of practice equals better performance

As the learning activities are organized in the pupil’s book, each lesson organizes writing activities that the teacher conducts every day. Pupils write a significant amount of words on a specific level of primary every day. It may seem hard and painful for them at first, but the more they write, the better their writing will get. These brief writing sessions, combined with their home assignments and exams (most of which will require essay writing skills), will assure you that their writing is always practiced. In this way, they will find it much easier to pull off better words, ideas and content.

3. Provide instructions throughout the writing process

The moment you provide your students with a specific assignment, take a few moments and explain to them how they should go about it. Another thing you can do is give them a starting point. Show them some techniques that will save them time and energy. By approaching them in this manner, and giving them more than enough in order to complete their assignments, they will just do better. With time, they will significantly improve their writing skills.

4. Provide helpful feedback

When it comes to improving writing skills—for everybody, not just for students—feedback plays a huge role during the process. As a teacher, you have a great deal of knowledge compared to your fellow pupils. They see you as a role model, especially if you’re the one who’s training them. Your role as a teacher, besides the teaching, is to offer your students quality feedback. Your feedback should contain specific tips and corrections for each and every student separately. This way, you’ll prove to them that you really care about them, and you’ll also let them know where they’ve specifically gone wrong.

5. Have your students read a lot

Most successful writers are also keen readers. Try to make your students understand the importance of everyday reading, and the link between reading and writing. A good way to make it easier for them is to give them clear instructions and reading material. For example, you can give them a list of books/articles/essays, and offer them specific and clear indications of where to look when they start the reading process, how to study the sentences, the style, and so on. In doing so, they will see great improvement when it comes to their word choice, sentence structure, and how the whole content will chronologically flow.

Adapted from https://www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/6-ways-improvestudents-

writing-skills

6.4. Steps followed while teaching writing about different topics

6.4.a. Learning activity:

Picture observation and interpretation 

Observe the above image and answer the following questions:

a. Identify the steps for a writing process.

b. Describe the steps for a writing process.

Notes

Graves’ (1983) research influenced writing pedagogy by suggesting that writing can be divided into several distinct stages that follow:

1) Prewriting: This is the planning phase of the writing process. When pupils brainstorm, research, gather and outline ideas, often using diagrams for mapping out their thoughts. The target audience and purpose should be considered at this point, and for the older pupils, a working thesis statement needs to be clearly started.

2) Drafting: Pupils create their initial composition by writing down all their ideas in an organized way to convey a particular idea or present an argument. The purpose of the writing needs to be finalized.

3)Revising: Pupils review, modify, and reorganize their work by rearranging, adding, or deleting content and by making the tone, style and content appropriate for the intended audience. The goal of this phase of the writing process is to improve the draft.

4) Editing: At this point in the writing process, writers proofread and correct errors in grammar and mechanics they equally edit to improve style  and clarity. Having another writer’s feedback at this stage is helpful.

5) Presenting/Publishing: In this last step of the writing process, the final writing is shared with the group. Sharing can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and with the help of computers, it can even be printed or published online.

6.4.1.Steps for writing a story

Taking those first steps towards writing a story can be both a fun and challenging activity for your child. By planning and writing a story, children learn to put their thoughts into order and use written language to communicate their ideas in a variety of ways.

Finding ideas and inspiration for writing a story can be tricky for both children and adults alike. Helping your child structure their story from beginning to end is a great way to make the writing process a whole lot easier.

Step 1: Think of an idea

A good place to start is by reading a book together. Stop and ask your child to make predictions about how the story might end. Your child’s alternative ending may become great material for a new and original story. You can also write stories based on real-life experiences such as your child’s first day of school, an adventure in the park, or losing their first tooth.

Step 2: Create a character and a setting

Ask your child to create a character and a setting. Will their main character be a child, an adult, or even an animal? Will the story be set in the local park, a different country, or even outer space? Let your child’s imagination run wild and avoid being critical or adding your own creative flair to their ideas.

Step 3: Beginning

All good children’s stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Ask your child to expand on their original story idea and set the opening scene. What’s special or different about their main character? Maybe it’s a cat who enjoys taking baths, a superhero who can’t fly, or a princess who lives in a cave!

Step 4: Conflict

A story with no conflict can be rather dull. Help your child understand the concept of conflict in a story by revisiting some of their best-loved books.  Explain to them when a conflict arises and encourage them to create one for their own story. They can even introduce a new character to shake things up!

Step 5: Turning Point

The turning point is usually in the middle of the story, and helps to make a story more interesting. It can be a moment, a time where a character discovers a hidden superpower, or a surprise that throws the whole story into a spin. Ask your child to think of something that the reader would least expect. It doesn’t always have to make sense – this is your child’s time to unleash their imagination and full potential.

Step 6: Resolution

A good story doesn’t finish without a final resolution. Ask your child how the conflict in their story pans out. Challenge them to link the conflict with the turning point to create a meaningful resolution.

Step 7: Ending

A satisfying ending is the perfect way to finish a story. What happened to the characters once their conflict became resolved? Were they able to finally achieve something, or did they learn an important lesson as a result?

A trip to Gatuna

Mutoni had never been to the Gatuna Border Post. She heard about it from her father. One day, Mutoni requested her father to take her to Gatuna. “Yes, I can,” Mutoni’s father replied. “I can go with you over the weekend. I will not be working on Saturday.” They planned to leave early the following Saturday. “I am going to Gatuna Border Post on Saturday,” Mutoni told her friend when they met. Mary was interested in going too. “I am going to ask for permission from my parents. I would like to come with you,” Mary told Mutoni.Mary’s parents gave her permission to go. Mutoni’s father asked her to be ready by 5.45 am on Saturday. They set off at exactly 6:00 a.m. on Saturday. The two pupils were very excited with what they saw along the way. There were terraced hills, meandering roads and vast tea plantations.

After reading, assess whether the extract follows the following criteria:

a) A clear and consistent organization

b) Short sentences

c) Excellent use of grammar

d) Varied vocabulary

e) Punctuation

f) Use of dialogue

Activities for developing generic competences and integration of cross-cutting issues in the lessons related to reading

Learning activity

Read and answer questions

Jane and Sam wrote down a plan for their activities as follows.

Our planned activities for tomorrow

6:00 am – we will get up and take a bath.

6:30 am – we will have breakfast and then board a bus to school.

7:00 am –we will be at school.

1:00 pm – we will go to the bus stop and board a bus back home.

1:30 pm – we will have lunch with our parents.

3:00 pm – we will go to play football with our friends.

6:00 pm – we will go back home, bathe and do our homework.

8:00 pm – we will watch TV and go to bed.

Activity

1. Make a similar plan of activities for yourself.

2. Write down the activities in your exercise book.

3. Present your plan to your classmates.

After reading the above activity, carry out the following tasks:

Which skills can be developed by students in the activity above?

 What are the generic competences developed and Cross-cutting issues addressed in the above activity?

Notes

Generic competences developed

Creativity and Innovation: through writing activities such as sentences, paragraphs, compositions and stories, pupils need to create them or innovate ones given to get a new one. Therefore, all these activities mentioned develop creativity and innovation in our pupils because they will later be able to write and produce newspapers, textbooks, novels while using all the competences acquired during their writing activities. 

Critical thinking: writing activities in English require a pupil to create ideas, judge on the topic when writing a composition, evaluate ideas when summarizing a story and also use their imagination to produce anything written. These elements mentioned show how writing requires critical thinking as an ideal competence.

Research and problem-solving: referring to a saying that states, ‘a good reader is a good writer’, literally meaning that people who write reflect to what they have read. For example, you can never write a good story if you do not read stories, you cannot produce good books when you do not carry out research from other books where you can learn for example how to define different concepts. So, as far as writing is concerned, for a pupil to produce something, he/she needs to be encouraged to read/search, hence research and problem-solving.

Communication: writing is a productive skill that intends to inform. During writing activities in English, the teacher needs to help pupils learn to put different parts of speech and ideas together to produce a sentence, a paragraph, a composition, a story to inform or communicate something. For example, a pupil can write the following sentence: ‘I love my mother’, in case they were asked to comment on their families. Therefore, when a pupil writes something like in the example given in the above sentence, he/she will be required to put together different parts of speech or gather ideas to produce something, which therefore develops effective communication as a competence.

Cross-cutting issues addressed

Environment and sustainability: referring to unit 3(Our district) in p4, unit 4 (Weather) and unit 4 in p5 (environment), a teacher can ask pupils to write a composition talking about their districts or ask them to describe different weather types and their surrounding environment.

From those units mentioned, a teacher can assign a task to pupils to talk about the importance of forests or animals. The teacher can also ask pupils to discuss the relevance of protecting forests and animals. Therefore, the issue of environment and sustainability will be addressed from what pupils will write on the topics of environment.

Notice:  As far as writing lessons is concerned, cross-cutting issues will be addressed depending on the topics to talk about as we have seen in the above example. For instance, pupils can write on social cohesion (peace), HIV/AIDS, etc. However, apart from the content, the teacher’s techniques and attitude while teaching writing lessons will address different Crosscutting issues.

6.5. How to write a lesson plan on teaching writing skills.

Lesson plan analysis

Learning activity 6.4.a. Carefully read the lesson plan below and answer the questions that follow.