PGI410188-41010064DO/ME (20202) - Tecnologias em Ensino e Aprendizagem

Good afternoon, everyone! 

Stanley (2013) proposes that teachers help students use the many opportunities they have online to practice writing: blogs, wikis, social-networking platforms, etc. In his chapter about writing, the author proposes activities that contribute to developing a set of subskills. He also emphasizes teachers should help learners become familiar with the different cultural aspects that influence discourse. Chapelle and Jamieson (2008) argue that when learners engage in writing, they develop their language ability. They explain that learners need to choose the linguistic features that will enable them to express meanings effectively.

Good morning guys!

The activities proposed in the unit offer more authentic purposes for written productions, involving learners integration, real content, and more realistic communicative situations. As highlighted by Stanley (2013), teachers should focus on the kind of writing that students are most engaged with and that is more frequent in their life contexts. For example, young adults may need to exercise their academic writing, whereas teenagers may be more interested in social networks. These interests and needs must be taken into account to develop more meaningful writing activities beyond the ones proposed in coursebooks.

Following this perspective, the use of the internet in written production can be very beneficial, especially to familiarize learners with the specifics of the genre and have more significant opportunities for practice. Another crucial point is that the available tools can simultaneously provide feedback while the learner elaborates the text. According to Chappelle and Jamieson (2008), receiving feedback during writing can help in the overall language learning process because “it draws learners’ attention to the specific language that they are attempting to use. In particular, the vocabulary and grammar that learners do not know well become salient during the process of writing with help and feedback” (p. 106).

Stanley (2013) argues in his chapter that writing is the most affected skill with the rise of technology. I have never thought about this perspective. The author emphasizes his argument by listing the tools that deal with writing which emerged with technology (blogs, wikis, and social networking). In these examples, I would also add platforms that are not especially social media but can also be a way in which learners might engage in writing. For instance, the website "Omegle", which became of huge interest to people during the quarantine. On this website, it is possible to interact with people all over the world through writing or speaking. As argued by the author, it is challenging to make students immerse themselves in the web beyond their first language. This is especially true to students that are not so motivated to learn a second/foreign language. Thus, the objective of the teacher becomes to show the students how these tools might be interesting and useful for them. 

Chapelle and Jamieson (2008), in their chapter about writing, argue that writing is not only a skill to be learned but a medium for language learning as well. The authors highlight that in order to communicate effectively through writing, there must be an effort on the part of the writer to think about language (which vocabulary to use, how to best structure the test, how to convey the message depending on the audience, and so on). I agree with the authors and I believe that through the process of drafting and writing the students can learn a lot about the language.

Hey there!

Regarding writing, I agree with Stanley (2013) and Chapelle and Jamieson (2008) when they say that students already write regularly (emails, online, for academic purpose). Most of my students use social media and play online games regularly where English is a predominant language. Besides, as I only teach adults, I also agree that activities related to writing CVs, professional emails or editting their LinkedIn profiles are especially relevant. Furthermore, technology can provide a different kind of collaborative writing nowadays once many peolpe can edit a text document using Google Docs or any equivallent tool. Thus, students can engage in creating stories, compositions, reviews, and many other text genres together, not only wikis or blogs.

Teaching writing is definitely my favorite task as an EFL teacher. I totally agree with Stanley (2013) and William (in the comment above ) that students already write a lot and we should use that in their favor. In my case, since I also only teach adults, I like to understand what kind of text those students would like to write in English. Most often than not their main goal is to develop their academic writing ability so I focus on that.

The activities proposed by Stanley are very interesting and helpful. Some of the resources provided by the book, such as story starters and word cloud creators, I did not know about and it was very useful to get to know them a bit more. I think teaching writing helps students to develop not only the language but also their creativity and autonomy. Creative writing, specifically, can be a great opportunity for students to feel free to use the language and apply their knowledge when at the same time writing about something they are fond of. 

Hello, everyone

Digital technology also lends itself easily to the skill of writing. Writing in online environments can be done at the learners’ speed, in their own time, both in and out of class. In Stanley’s book, there is a range of tools and content for practicing writing, rather than simply replacing paper with digital text. 

Hello everyone,

Regarding the writing skill, Stanley (2013) states that due to the rise of the internet, this would be one the most affected skill among them all. Since people tend to use their smartphones for sending messages, participating in blogs or writing in social media, people seem to be more used to writing these days. Moreover, the author also points out the fact that language teachers may face some challenges when trying to extend learners' skills beyond their mother language. Having that in mind, the activities provided by the author were really interesting to be worked with students, motivating them to also practice writing in an additional language, consequently getting more used to it. The activities not only work with writing sub-skills such as summarising and reporting but also how to write CVs and be aware of abbreviations commonly used in social medias. Some of the activities I really liked were 7.3 Message from the past and 7.10 Crazy stories or poems.

As Chapelle argues, when learning writing it is necessary to think about the audience, the purpose of that writing. Thus, the learner must learn the steps of writing, the logic of writing a message. The tips that they provided that I most liked were “selecting appropriate writing text as models”, and “choose CALL that teaches genre as well as linguistic knowledge and strategies” because the texts must be according to learners’ level. and, a genre approach seems to be useful because students can perceive and analyze which features a text is required when writing. 

Writing is usually overlooked in language courses, at least in Brazil. However, as Stanley (2013) mentions, because of the Internet people started writing again, sending text messages, writing blogs, wikis, or even chatting online with friends when playing games, and this makes writing a skill that teachers should devote more attention to in classes. 

Focusing on writing activities that involve genres our students are used to reading and maybe even writing might be the first step towards transforming learning to write in something appealing and purposeful for our students. Genres usually found on the Internet and collaborative writing on blogs are very interesting ways to have students practice and be able to record their evolution. 

Another way, specially for young learners, might be using Twitter and Instagram, as well as online games in which they usually communicate with others. 

Hello Guys,

Writing and technological resources have been good partners in language teaching, providing learners with lots of language learning situations. Stanley offers many ideas to practice writing using technology, however, he pinpoints that teachers must prepare writing activities taking into account learners' interests and needs. I agree that being aware to our students' profile is really important, for instance, teenagers tend to enjoy social media and games related content while adult learners usually want to focus on e-mails and professional related issues.

As an example, I would like to report my daughter's writing experience at school. When she was 9 yo, her English teacher had a blog for her class. In that blog, the teacher and the students used to post their written production, curiosities, messages. They used to post about everything that was relevant to them, and they could interact a lot.  It was amazing, language learning was so organic and meaningful!