Teaching Writing to Young

Learner

The Young Language Learner

According to Cameron (2001) level of young learners

are:
Age 3-6 years old: very young learner
Age 7-9 years old: younger learner
Age 10-12 years old: older learner

Characteristics of Young learners

According to Brumfit (1991:7) some characteristics of
young learners are:
children are enthusiastic about learning;
children love to play and learn best when they are
enjoying themselves;
children have fewer negative attitudes to foreign
language;
childrens language learning is more closely
integrated with real communication;
Children learn through five senses.

When should children learn to write in the

foreign language?
Children learning English may not write very much in the

first year or two (Lee, 2001:23).

They may still be consolidating their concept of print.
Copying provides opportunities to practice handwriting,
learn & consolidate their understanding of new
vocabulary, develop an awareness of and confidence in
English spelling and practice a range of simple sentence
patterns they have learned to use in speaking.
An important principle at all levels is children should not
be asked to write something that they cannot say in
English.

Pupils in the 2nd year of schooling may move on to

practice writing sentence and very simple.

Much of this writing provides specific language
practice as in selecting and spelling words
correctly, using the correct word order, using
grammatical structure and linking sentences with
simple conjunction.
Children enjoy personal writing, so it is good idea
to personalize writing tasks wherever possible.

What do native speaker children write?

Writing is a complex skill
Children begin with emergent writing
During first year of formal schooling, they learn

tracing and connecting letters to make words.

Writing activities with younger children

EFL children need practice with the mechanical

basics of writing
They can start with tracing and copying
Activity involves word level writing
Finger writing
The course books contain written exercises at
sentence level (gap fill, matching words or sentence
with pictures)
Teachers use guided writing (cards, invitation,
letters, or posters)

Writing for Older Children

They are ready for free writing (fill cartoon bubbles,

write instruction, shopping list, short message)

Introduce them to word processor (computer)
They use writing for record keeping (notes, diary, or
journal)
Dictogloss is a creative way of using gap-filling and
dictation in the UK by Jupp&Harvey (1996) from an
original idea of Wajnryb (1991)

Dictogloss
The steps are:
1. Prepare pupils with a range of pre listening activities to listen to a

2.

3.
4.

5.
6.

story to introduce the topic and key words. Give the pupils a list of
the key words.
Read the story once again, not too fast. Pupils listen to the text a
second time and give tick to the words from the word list.
Afterwards pupils complete gap filling activities.
Pupils re-tell the story orally in pairs, using the completed gapfilling text and pictures.
Pupils now retell the story in writing working in pairs or
individually, trying to reconstruct the text together or recreate the
main meaning with grammatical accuracy and well organized idea.
Display finished version and discuss the story produced.
A variation is that pupils try to create a different ending.

The mechanics of writing

Writing has its mechanical components such as:

handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the construction

of well-formed sentences, paragraphs and text.

the Handwriting Challenge:

Handwriting can be difficult for some students. Areas of

difficulty can include producing the shapes of English

letters- upper case and lower case equivalent, the size as
can their correct positioning with or without ruled lines,
the writing style from right to left can involve not only
problems of perception but also necessitates a different
angle and position for writing arm.

Teaching handwriting
Teachers can follow a two-stage approach:
a. Recognition

Recognize specific letters within a sequence of letters.

The teacher can draw letters or words in the air
which SS have to identify.
a. Production
Teacher can give dictation of individual words and
asks SS to write down, gives an alphabetical list of
animals and SS have to write the words in one of
three columns, gives questions and SS have to write
one-word answer.

Teaching Punctuation
SS at elementary level can study a collection of words

and identify + rewrite which ones are written in

capital letters or not
SS are asked to give punctuations such as full stops
and commas
SS can be shown a sentence and ask to identify what
punctuation is used and why

Copying
Disguised word copying
Copying from the board
Making notes
Whisper writing

Sentence Paragraph and Text

Sentence production (elementary level): SS are given one

or two model sentences and then have to write similar

sentences based on information given or on their own
thoughts
Paragraph construction (elementary level): it employs a
substitution drill style of procedure to encourage SS to
write a paragraph which is almost identical to one they
have just read.
Free text construction (elementary level): it uses the
technique of parallel writing but it leaves the SS free to
decide how closely they wish to follow the original model
or based on their imagination.

References
Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). The

Primary English Teachers Guide. (New. Ed),

England: Pearson Education Limited
Cameron , L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young
Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge University
Press
Reid, J. M. (1993). Teaching ESL Writing. United
States of America: Prentice Hall Regents