Chapter 9 – Writing Skills
Introduction
Faith Adler; Logan Fisher; Abhay Pawar; Keli Yerian; and Bibi Halima
Writing is typically the last skill you will encounter or practice during language learning. After all, we don’t use it nearly as much as the other skills, even in our L1. But consider all the areas you might use writing regularly. You might send text messages and emails online, write resumes and essays, or write journals or poetry. Writing touches many areas of our life, with different situations demanding a variety of different writing styles.
Writing is typically considered a presentational skill, that is, you are presenting information without the expectation of having an immediate response; however, with the rise of texting and emailing where responses are rapid, it is also becoming an interpersonal skill that is important for online communication. In fact, texting can be a fantastic way to practice writing.
But what are some thought processes that go into writing? How can we make the process of generating ideas in our L2 easier? Abhay has some ideas for writing about his favorite car to his friend, Lorenzo – in Italian this time!
What can we notice from Abhay’s approach to writing?
- He writes about content he enjoys.
- He writes to a real person who will read it and respond to him.
- He is also focused on writing ideas, not words. This is important because the same idea isn’t always translated word-for-word in different languages.
- Abhay didn’t get caught up in worrying about not knowing certain words. Instead he used circumlocution.
- He reads it out loud at the end to check how it sounds.
As with the other skills chapters, these are just example strategies that you can also choose to adopt. It’s fine if you make other choices that work better for you.
This final skills chapter focuses on writing in both the presentational mode and in the interpersonal mode (interactive writing skills like texting). As with the previous three chapters, we provide core principles for guidance, and then discuss some of the theory and research supporting these principles. Finally we show a variety of strategies and stories that have been gathered in part from past students in LING 144 at the University of Oregon.
Media Attributions
The original video on this page © Abhay Pawar is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution NonCommercial) license.
Language(s) you are first exposed to and learn. Note that individuals can have multiple L1s if they are raised in a bi- or multilingual community
“A communication strategy that allows language learners to express themselves even when there is a gap in their linguistic knowledge. This is achieved through using descriptions, explanations and definitions instead of the unknown target structure” (Worden, 2016).
