Teaching Writing Skills to L2 Learners

[dr_linguista]

Hi everyone...
This semester I am teaching writing skills to L2 learners (Arabs) beginning levels, which makes it the third time I do that, and to tell you the truth, it is so hard to make the students write just one paragraph. Through my experience , I have noticed that students do not and in fact cannot write well... I find a hard time just to get them to write composition.

I want to know how to encourage them, especially they have just come from high school, and find whatever they take in the college ridiculous and boring!

Sometimes I think they are just afraid of making mistakes so that they do not feel like writing anything. I tend to explain a lot of grammatical rules for them, yet when I get the papers I find them FULL of mistakes!!!

Besides, I want to know whether to give them A LOT of feedbacks on their writings or just focus the points discussed...because correcting papers gets me so exhausted.

[Tdol]

If they are low level, then it might be too much for them to produce long texts.

[dr_linguista]

Well, I do not want them to write an essay now. I want them to just write one paragraph of 4 -6 sentences.

And I wonder if there are some methods to encourage them to write... and what kind of feedbacks I can give...

[Tdol]

Can they submit to you by email? I have started getting work sent by email and I record my feedback as an MP3, which is much less strenuous on me and allows me to give fuller feedback, and also tests listening skills as well.

[saleemabu]

dear,

Be paicent with them , motivation and praise may raise their skills moreover try to vary your writing activites andfocus on homework
exercises . TO TRAIN THEM GRADUALLY TO WRITE THE EASEST FIRST THEN ENCOURAGE THEM TO COMPET INDIVIDUALLY OR IN GROUPS. FINALLY YOU CAN HONOR TOP STUDENTS OR GROUPS.

ALL THE BEST.

[dr_linguista]

Patience?!

I hate teaching skills...students never do anything....they want to just MEMORIZE some kind of material then get their exams on what they already studied...

And the MP3 idea is nice when you only have at most 20 students, but in case you have almost 55 or 60 students within ONE classroom, it is a living hell...I mean they would understand what I would be telling them...Besides, not all students have access to the Internet, because of social and cultural, and probably financial differences...