THEORIES RELATED TO TOW

RESEARCH ON 2 ND LANGUAGE WRITING. LECTURE 4

THE THEORY OF WRITING

Product vs Process

Contrastive Rhetoric

Authenticity
PRODUCT VS. PROCESS THEORY OF WRITING
 PRODUCT
A few decades ago writing teachers were mostly
concerned with the final product of writing (essay,
report, the story) and what the product should
‘look’ like.
COMPOSITIONS WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET
CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS:
Meet certain
standards of Reflect accurate
prescribed English grammar
rhetorical style

Be organized in
conformity with what
the audience would
consider to be
conventional.

A good deal of attention was placed on ‘model’

compositions that students would emulate.
STUDENT’S FINAL PRODUCT WAS MEASURED UP
AGAINST A LIST OF CRITERIA THAT INCLUDED:
CONTENT

MECHANICAL ORGANIZATION
ASPECTS
FINAL
PRODUCT

GRAMMAR VOCABULARY
 PROCESS
Learners are seen as creators of language-they
are allowed to focus on the content & message,
and when their own individual intrinsic motives
were put at the center of learning.
PROCESS APPROACHES DO MOST OF THE
FOLLOWING:
focus more on the PROCESS of writing
that leads to the final written product.

help them to build

helps student writers to repertoires of
understand their own strategies for
prewriting drafting
composing process. and rewriting

place central let students

give students importance on discover what
time to write the process of they want to say
revision as they write
 give students feedback throughout the
composing process (not just on the final
product) to consider as they attempt to bring
their expression closer and closer to intention

include individual
encourage feedback conferences between
both from the instructor teacher and student
and peers. during the process of
composition

WRITING IS INDEED A THINKING PROCESS

Peter Elbow (1973: 14 – 16)
“The common sense, conventional understanding of
writing is as follows. Writing is a two-step Process. First
you figure out your meaning, then you put it into
language:…figure out what you want to say, don’t
start writing till you do, make a plan, use an outline;
begin writing only afterward. Central to this model is
the idea of keeping control, keeping things in hand.
Don’t let things wander into a mess.
CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC THEORY OF WRITING
CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC
In 1966 an article was printed by Robert
Kaplan that has been the subject of great
debate and discussion ever since.

Kaplan’s thesis: different languages (and

their cultures) have different patterns of
written discourse.

The linguistic patterns and rhetorical

convention of the first language often
transfer to writing in ESL and thus cause
interference.
CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC (CONTINUED)
No one can deny the effect of one’s native culture or one’s
predispositions that are the product of perhaps years of
schooling, reading, writing, thinking, asserting, arguing and
defending.

schooling reading writing

thinking Asserting, arguing

and defending.
AUTHENTICITY THEORY OF WRITING
AUTHENTICITY
Issues in the teaching writing:

How much of our

writing is ‘real’
writing?

How authentic are

the classroom
writing exercises?
REAL WRITING VS DISPLAY WRITING

Real writing Display writing

the readers do not such as writing
know the ‘answer’ and exercises in classroom
genuinely want where the reader is the
information. teacher because this
writing is to display a
student’s knowledge.

As teachers – should we incorporate more real

writing in our classrooms?
RESEARCH ON 2ND LANGUAGE WRITING
Trends in the teaching of writing in ESL have coincided with those of
teaching other skills.
Communicative language teaching gathered momentum in the 1980s
which was focusing more on:

A. Teaching fluency, not just accuracy.

B. How to use authentic text and context in the classroom.
C. How to focus on the purposes of linguistics communication
D. How to capitalize on learners intrinsic motives to learn
CONCLUSION
As a teacher you must keep your teaching meaningful/purposeful and
intrinsically motivating.
Then, you must discover why your students need to write, what form
their writing will therefore take and steer techniques in the direction of
those purposes and forms.
Then, writing will be meaningful and communicative in the best sense
of the terms
TUTORIAL 1
Describe your 21st century ideal teacher in terms of: characteristic and
teaching styles.
List 2 advantages and disadvantages of product and process
approach?
In your opinion, how to eradicate contrastive rhetoric issue in teaching
writing skill? Suggest three ways.
How to cultivate the sense of authenticity in teaching writing skill?