Chapter 9 – Writing Skills
Writing Strategies & Stories
Keli Yerian; Faith Adler; and Bibi Halima
As in the previous skills chapters, this section shares some strategies for learning to write in your L2. As before, some of these were crowd-sourced from students taking LING 144 Learning How to Learn Languages, and we hope more will be added by future cohorts. Though not all of these specific strategies will work for everyone, feel free to try out a few and see what works for you. You might be surprised about which strategies stick!
A few of the strategies have students’ stories included. Enjoy finding and reading them!
Metacognitive strategies for writing
Think about why you are writing
Keeping your purpose in mind can help a lot with getting started on your writing. Are you writing to tell someone about some news? Are you writing just to express some feelings in a journal? Are you writing an essay or story for a class? Are you writing an email or a short text to someone to arrange a meeting? All of these choices involve different styles and definitely have different implications for how much you review and revise your writing.
Think about what you are writing, and who you are writing to
Similarly to the point above, what you write depends a lot on who you are writing to, and why. The question of genre pops up again here. Are there expectations that the reader will have about your writing when they read it? For example, if you are writing a news story, the reader will expect to have the key facts of the story near the beginning of the text. Or if you are writing a paragraph to show your ability to use the past tenses to your teacher, you will want to review that grammar carefully before you turn it in. If you are writing an analysis of a piece of literature, your reader will expect to see a clear thesis statement in your introduction. If you are writing a text message, you may want to be careful to include the emojis that help signal your attitude or emotion.
Make a plan to write, and a plan for what you’re writing
Depending on your goals, making a plan usually helps to achieve them! Again, SMART goals can help you really pin down your goals, but even simply having a routine of writing in a journal in the morning or night, or giving yourself extra time to revise for important assignments, reflects the power of the metacognitive cycle.
You can also take some time to plan out what you will write as well, for example with an outline or mind-map, especially if it is a longer composition that needs to be coherent as a whole.
Use visuals to map out or illustrate what you are writing
Remember the benefits of multimodality! Visuals of what you are writing can be helpful in so many ways. Just as you can draw a mind-map to plan your writing, you can use a mind-map to help revise something you have already written! By drawing out the main ideas or logical progression of what your essay says, for example, you can see if it flows well and makes sense.
And if the genre allows it, you can create or include illustrations or designs that enhance your writing as well. Most readers love to see visuals (which is why we tried to include a lot of them in this book)!
Take advantage of your language class
As we have said before, if you are taking a language class, take full advantage of it! Especially with tasks involving writing, the teacher is there to give you feedback and structure, and you can ask the teacher lots of questions. People who are studying independently often don’t have such easy access to writing feedback or practice with the different genres that a class provides.
Socio-affective strategies for writing
Keep a journal
By keeping a journal, you can frequently practice writing in a casual, low-pressure environment. This is an opportunity to practice daily-use language as well as practice writing about any specific topics you are learning about, but don’t feel ready to discuss with others yet. Writing in another language can be an interesting way to explore emotional topics as well, since strongly emotional words usually have less impact on us in another language.
If you make frequent entries, this is also a good opportunity to see how much you have grown over time. The first page of your journal is likely to look dramatically different than the last, and this can be a huge encouragement at times when you don’t feel that your language skills are improving.
Indulge in freewriting
Freewriting is a way to increase fluidity in your writing in any language. Allow yourself to write without worrying about mistakes and accuracy. You will notice that while practicing freewriting, you brain might keep switching from one language to another. That’s okay, embrace all your languages and do not hold back from writing words in different languages while writing in your L2. Welcoming translanguaging in your writing will help you gain confidence and engage with your learning creatively.
Milo, a past LING 144 student, wrote a free-form poem that captures the fluid nature of thoughts in writing and how translanguaging enhanced their creativity and clarity of expression in writing.
Más que yo, by Milo
Más que yo
¿Cuáles son
mis motivaciones de verdad
de aprender más lenguas?
¿Por qué prefiero distanciarme
de mi own language?
No sé. ¿Son mis razones rooted in
mi dolor,
su engaño,
nuestra historia?
Or do I actually enjoy
este proceso, de
making new connections?
¿De qué estoy esperando?
…Why not both?
¿Por qué no me permito
to heal
Y
disfrutar completamente
este journey?
Maybe
if I relearn the words
en otra lengua,
they will be kinder this time.
Quizás
estaré más fuerte esta vez.
Maybe
I could finally tell them
¡NO estoy bien!
¡DEJA de llámame ella!
¿Por qué me dueles como así?
Este soy yo, no me puedes cambiar;
Lo siento mucho.
¿…Quieres ser amigos?
Tengo miedo de
Taking what’s not mine;
No quiero ser
entitled,
ignorante,
inconsciente.
Quiero expresarme,
en maneras que
aren’t possible in English,
but también
quiero ser
amable, y
respetuoso.
Solo quiero entender
más que yo.
Quiero ser
más que yo
– Milo Coine
Translation by Keli Yerian
| Más que yo
¿Cuáles son |
More than me What are |
| Maybe if I relearn the words en otra lengua, they will be kinder this time. Quizás estaré más fuerte esta vez. Maybe I could finally tell them ¡NO estoy bien! ¡DEJA de llámame ella! ¿Por qué me dueles como así? Este soy yo, no me puedes cambiar; Lo siento mucho. |
Maybe if I relearn the words in another language they will be kinder this time. Perhaps I’ll be stronger this time Maybe I could finally tell them I’m NOT okay! STOP calling me her! Why do you hurt me like this? This is me, you can’t change me I’m really sorry. |
| ¿…Quieres ser amigos? Tengo miedo de I Taking what’s not mine; No quiero ser entitled, ignorante, inconsciente. Quiero expresarme, en maneras que aren’t possible in English, but también quiero ser amable, y respetuoso. Solo quiero entender más que yo. |
Do you want to be friends? I’m afraid of Taking what’s not mine; I don’t want to be entitled, ignorant unaware I want to express myself in ways that aren’t possible in English, but I also want to be friendly, and respectful. I want to understand more than I do |
| Quiero ser más que yo -Milo Coine |
I want to be more than me |
Explanation
In the poem, I specifically mention the desire to distance myself from my own words, and that using other languages allows me to do that. This is something I have thought about a lot recently, and I think that this struggle clearly shows how important language is both practically and emotionally. Words and their intent have an unspeakable impact on how we go about our lives, and this can be a blessing and a curse. I’ve noticed that for me, both sides of the coin can be really intimidating; being perceived correctly can feel just as uncomfortable as not being perceived correctly.
In the second stanza, I primarily talk about how learning a new language allows me to express myself differently than in English, and how freeing that can be. I think it’s safe to say that every language has at least a few phrases, or individual words, that have no direct translation into another language. The context of each word in its given language also changes. One of the biggest reasons I chose to write in Spanish, besides just knowing it well, is that it is a gorgeous language with which to write poetry. I’ve found that I actually prefer it to English, if only because the words come more easily and beautifully in Spanish. It’s like it was built for poetry. In this stanza, I end it with a bunch of things I’m often too anxious to say outright in English; a variety of different emotions in each phrase, and somehow, they feel easier to say in Spanish. I think that this aspect of the poem overall shows that language paths are more than just the practical side of learning, but that there are also mental and emotional effects.
In the second to last stanza, I briefly talk about my fears, and what I truly want out of learning languages. My biggest fear is just stepping over the line from appreciation to appropriation, and generally being ignorant of my actions and intentions. I have to remind myself that it’s not inherently appropriative to learn a new language, and that most of the time it’s mutually beneficial. I also know deep down that I am very careful of my actions and that I have only the best intentions; as long as I stay true to that, I will have an extremely hard time messing up.
In writing this poem and in taking this class, I realized that everything I want in learning a new language boils down to one thing: I want to learn about, understand, and be more than just myself. I want to travel the world, experience things and people that are different from me, connect to the world around me in a variety of ways. I think that in one way or another, this is everyone’s goal in learning a new language, whether they know it or not.
Build your writing community
There are many ways that you can find or build an online community among writers of your L2. This community could be made up of people from a language class you attend, friends you’ve made online, an online group that is already arranged in your town/city, or an online gaming community.
You can create group messages or talk individually with members of this community, use one another as resources, or negotiate meaning and nuance of vocabulary and grammar. This also may open up the opportunity to talk with speakers who use different dialects or other proficient speakers of the language who can help to guide you on your language learning journey, and offer you additional tips based on their own experience.
Write notes to a friend, family member, or pen pal
Do you have a roommate who is also studying French? Leave little handwritten notes for fun! Do you have a grandparent who speaks your heritage language? Send a text or email using the language (they will probably really appreciate this, knowing how grandparents are). If you really want some regular practice, use an app like Slowly to connect with other learners around the world who are using your L2.
Ask others to review your writing
If you are writing something that needs to look good or be clear to your reader, getting help from someone else can help you know if it makes sense, flows smoothy, or has errors or typos that you missed. Although editing tools can help with this too, having a real person look at your work can be a fun way to learn with another person and get a real person’s point of view. If you’re taking a language class with a friend, take advantage of what you are both learning together to strengthen your goals of language learning.
Ask more proficient speakers to reformulate what you have written
Tutors or friends who are very proficient in your L2 and willing to help you with your writing can also help you by reformulating some of your writing. Reformulating is when someone rewrites your ideas in a way that is more typical or natural for a very proficient or native speaker. Reformulating doesn’t focus so much on errors or typos, but on elements of voice, cultural expression, and common word collocations in the language. You can look at the differences between your own writing and the reformulated writing and discuss them together. Be sure to only turn in your own work if this is an assignment that is supposed to reflect your current independent abilities, however.
When Keli Yerian (the faculty lead on this textbook project) was learning French in college, she had a French roommate for one year who helped her reformulate some of her writing assignments to show her how she would have expressed some of the same ideas. Keli loved the discussions she had about the language and felt she was improving a lot by doing this. However, one day her French teacher took her aside and questioned whether Keli’s writing was independent work. Keli was embarrassed and at the time was unable to explain how much she was learning. She was careful to only submit the work she did independently afterwards, but continued to learn from her roommate in parallel.
Find a place and time for writing that is comfortable for you
Is quickly dashing out an essay on your phone in bed really the most comfortable for you? Think about what would make writing more pleasant and motivating for you. Try to find a special corner in the library, on the lawn, or near a window in your house that makes you feel ready to write.
Strategies specific to presentational writing
Review your writing if it needs to be clear or accurate
Budget in the time to look back over your own work to see how much you can improve your own communication without relying right away on digital tools to help you. Can you independently notice changes you would like to make?
Read your writing aloud
If you carefully read your own writing aloud, you will often catch awkwardly written sentences or errors much more easily than by just reading silently. Listen to what you are reading, and see if the rhythm feels right, the length feels right, the words feel right, and so on.
Use digital tools to help you revise and edit (but wisely)
Digital writing tools available on the web can help you find typos, errors and unclear places in your writing. If you use these tools, use them to learn rather than to just do the writing for you! Notice if you have patterns of errors that you could learn to fix on your own. We recommend you use these tools only after you have tried to revise your own writing yourself first. Also, remember that digital tools can be biased or even wrong in terms of the voice and variety it is using. Always use the tools mindfully, and never use them to write for you when your independent writing is expected.
Strategies common to both interpersonal and presentational writing
Don’t stop frequently to correct small errors, look up words, or translate
This strategy should not come as a surprise to you by now, but we still have to list it! When you’re first trying to get your ideas down on paper, try doing it without stopping to edit your work. Although this isn’t true for everyone, stopping to wonder, “Is this the right conjugation?” or “Is this exactly the right word?” can derail you from the flow of your thoughts, resulting in accurate grammar or words but less interesting and coherent content. Try just writing what comes to mind at first, using the language that you already remember, and even using your L1 now and then to fill the gaps. You can revise later!
Be creative in the way only an L2 writer can be
This might sound like the opposite advice as reformulation, but they can actually go hand-in-hand. As L2 users, we sometimes come up with very unusual and creative ways to express our ideas that native speakers might not think to say or write that way. Although these unusual expressions might look “wrong” to a proficient speaker, they also can look unique and intriguing, and they might just work sometimes! If you like the way you expressed something in your L2, ask others if it still makes sense to see if you could keep it.
Trace new writing systems
Learning how to handwrite in another writing system is getting less and less common, but it is also an embodied way to connect with the history, culture and feel of the language. There are many templates you can find online for practicing the new script through tracing the lines.
Incorporate what you read into your own writing
One of the best ways to improve your writing skills in your L2 is to read often in your L2. Sometimes you can be quite intentional while you are reading to take note of the grammatical and vocabulary choices of the author. Reading gives you an opportunity to expand your own lexicon and turns of phrase. You can notice and use sentence structures, vocabulary, figures of speech, and anything else that you like to try it out in your own writing.
Create mnemonics for different writing systems
When learning a language with a different writing system, mnemonics can be a helpful tool to help you memorize characters. For example, Japanese character い is pronounced like the “ee” in “eel” and looks like two eels swimming around each other. Even though mnemonics don’t work for everyone, for many they can dramatically increase the speed at which we can learn a new writing system.
Keep a vocabulary journal
One of the best ways to use writing to learn vocabulary is to simply try communicating about something in your L2, see where the gaps are in your own knowledge, and keep a vocabulary journal about it so you can review these new words later. Are you trying to write about a favorite food and don’t know the word for an ingredient? While revising your writing, look up the word and write it in a vocabulary journal (which might be a physical journal or might be a file on your computer or phone). It’s likely that if you want to use it in your writing, it’s something you will want to remember later. Focusing on words you actually need can be more motivating and memorable than memorizing a random list of vocabulary you might need someday in the future.
Translanguage
The languages you already know are your friends in language learning! Don’t try to ban them from your thoughts if they come to mind first. Just notice them and feel free to use them if the L2 words don’t come to mind. This is your brain translanguaging, in other words using all the resources it has for communicating meaning. You can look up the L2 equivalents when you get the chance, and revise your writing at that point. Eventually the L2 words will also come to mind easily, and your translanguaging will become more intentional rather than necessary.
Translanguaging is both fun and empowering. Below is a poem written and translated by Faith when she was taking LING 144. Like Milo’s poem above, it shows how powerful translanguaging can be to communicate both literal and deeper meanings through multiple languages.
Faith’s Poems
| 十一月
My second host family. I met them today. They don’t speak like me. Rocks in my throat replace air. |
Jyuu ichi gatsu (November) |
| I will leave them soon,
My arrival family. Days pass by too fast. How am I supposed to run? Uncertainty makes its home. |
Kawatteru. (Things are changing.) |
| 変わってる。
Generational living. Little brothers, too. The first few days move slowly. I mourn. 戻りたい。 |
Modoritai. (I want to go back.)
|
| I shiver at night.
Drenched in that uncertainty. It goes on for weeks. 頑張っていて 前向きなのに。 |
Ganbatteite, maemuki nanoni
(Despite my best efforts to keep my head up.) |
| 学校は
づらいことだけ。 I am exhausted. Language becomes a burden. I hate this lack of control. |
Gakkou wa dzuraikoto dake.
(School is nothing but painful.) |
| This new world I see
Is so much larger than me. どうやって 狭くならせる？ I hide in my room and weep. |
Dou yatte semaku naraseru?
(How can I force it to be smaller?) |
| She tucks her kids in
And calls for me from downstairs. 降りて見た。 ご主人とミカン。 She asks me to lend my ear. |
Orite mita. Goshujin to mikan. (I went downstairs and saw her. Her husband was there, too, with fresh mandarin oranges.) |
| 隠れよう
とした私に She might have seen me. She speaks gently, heart on sleeve. 単語足りない。 |
Kakureyou to shita watashi ni (To the parts of me I tried to hide)
Tango tarinai. (I don’t understand a word.) |
| 頑張るよ。
頑張るしかぬ。 I want to hear them. 理解するまで、 くれた言葉を。 |
Ganbaru yo. Ganbaru shika nu. (I’ll try my best. There’s nothing else to do.)
Rikai suru made, kureta kotoba o (Until I can understand the words that you gave me.) |
| 十二月
途中ぐらい。 まだきつい。 だが、違うんだ また変わってる |
Jyuu ni gatsu tochuu gurai. Mada kitsui. Da ga, chigaun da. Mata kawatteru. (It’s sometime around mid-December now. It’s still harsh, but there’s something different about it. Things are changing again.) |
| メッセージ、
送った言葉 届いたよ。 読みながら泣く 正直言う。 |
Messeeji, okutta kotoba todoita yo. Yomi nagara naku. Shoujiki iu. (The message, the words you sent. They reached me, just so you know. I cried as I read them. I tell you the truth now.) |
| 久しぶり。
隠れた自分を 見られたね 弱虫の自分 どう思うかな？ |
Hisashiburi. Kakureta jibun o miraretane. Yowamushi no jibun dou omou kana? (It’s been a long time since someone really saw me, behind the front I put up. The real me has become so frail. I wonder what you think, Kana?) |
| この心
めっちゃ重い。 言えないよ。 ちゃんと理解 してくれるかな？ |
Ko no kokoro meccha omoi. Ienai yo. Chanto rikai shite kureru kana? (This heart feels so heavy. I can’t even begin to explain, so is it even possible for you to understand?) |
| 言葉なし
ちゃんと理解 できた、かな。 感じているよ。 何、この気持ち？ |
Kotoba nashi chanto rikai dekita, Kana. Kanjiteiru yo. Nani, ko no kimochi? (Even without words, you understood me. What is this feeling? I know that I feel it.) |
| 分かったよ。
言葉いらない。 Butこれこそ 何よりみたい。 話しようとし。 |
Wakatta yo. Kotoba iranai. But kore koso nani yori mitai. Hanashiyou to shi. (I finally got it. I know that we don’t need words, but that’s exactly why now more than ever I want to try. I will use everything I have to speak to you.) |
| かな達へ、
気づいたことは 自由化で いらない内に 行けそうになる。 |
jiyuuka de iranai uchi ni ike sou ni naru. (To the family I found in Kana, I realized that not having the need for words to communicate was what freed me. I think that I now have the strength to move forward.) |
Explanation
This set of poems, following the style of Tanka (a Japanese poetry format characterized by a syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7), recounts my experience as an exchange student in Japan. The writings on the left side are as I wrote them, and the accompanying text on the right includes readings of the Japanese characters as well as translations of the Japanese portion’s meanings. The change in language from primarily English to primarily Japanese is meant to represent my transition in comfort level with Japanese throughout my exchange. Also representing this is the use of some word play toward the end. One example of this is using my host mom’s name, Kana. There is also a sentence ending in Japanese that is pronounced the same way, meaning something like “I wonder”. I used this toward the end to say things that could be interpreted as both “I wonder what you think?” and “What do you think, Kana?”. I translated this as “I wonder what you think, Kana?” for simplicity’s sake. This is one of the examples of word play I used to represent my advancement and deeper understanding of language as my abilities evolved.
I remember well when I was preparing to switch host families. I had gotten used to life with my first host family who could speak English well. Though at first it had been a great learning tool, I began to abuse it as a crutch. I was terrified to switch families, especially once I learned that it would be a family who spoke less English than I did Japanese. Not only that, but it would be a family with a grandma, grandpa, and two little brothers in the house. Having been the youngest of four siblings by six years my entire life, then an “only child” in Japan, it was something totally foreign to me.
In the first part of my stay with them, I was incredibly lonely. I was running into language difficulties constantly with my friends at school and my family at home. I started to isolate myself as much as possible, while simultaneously keeping my head up in front of others and claiming that all was going smoothly. I had gotten pretty good at this act, as it’s one that I grew up putting on. However, Kana (my second host mom) saw right through it. She saw me like nobody had ever before. We didn’t need to exchange any words for her to understand me. We could communicate in other ways, such as hand gestures, broken translations, or otherwise, but most of the time we didn’t even need that. She always seemed to have this magical intuition to know what I needed when I did.
I avoided the affection she showed me at first. But she chased me relentlessly, and this is what changed the entire trajectory of my experience with my host family, my exchange, and arguably my whole life. I had never had someone fight so hard for me. And as I began to accept Kana and her family in, and allow them to see me, I was able to become more bold in my attempts at not just communication, but also language. I was able to shed my fears about “wrongness”, and simply communicate. I finally felt safe to make mistakes, no matter how many, and grow from it. I saw how effective the method was, and from then on actively sought out opportunities to put myself in places to make mistakes. Kana, without ever teaching me a “method” directly, as she wasn’t a language teacher herself, managed to teach me just about everything that I know about language learning. She taught me how to enjoy and make the most out of every day, wherever I was, whenever. I will never be able to thank her enough for the person that she helped me to become.
Use circumlocution
An alternative to translanguaging or looking up a word when you don’t know or remember it is to simply use the words you do know to describe it, what we call circumlocution (‘going or speaking around something’). For example, you can describe what it looks like, what it sounds or feels like, or what it’s used for. A fork can become, ‘the think you eat with that has four fingers’. A song can become ‘music with words’. A dinosaur can become ‘a very, very big animal in the past’. Skiing can become ‘going down snow on a hill’. Circumlocution can sometimes be even more interesting, poetic, or memorable than the word you were searching for!
Strategies specific to Interpersonal writing
Don’t worry about mistakes
Texting is naturally full of weird spellings and errors, so your L2 errors will fit right in. Interpersonal mode is far more tolerant of mistakes than presentational mode, so let yourself make them, as long as your writing still conveys your meaning the way you want!
Add an L2 keyboard
It’s easy these days to add keyboards from other languages on your devices. This can help you easily find the symbols you need for your L2.
Learn from autocorrect
When you have your L2 keyboard, you can notice what it suggests for autocorrect as you type or text. Often autocorrect includes suggested words that are the most expected next words, and in this way it helps you use and learn common collocations (words that tend to go together statistically in the language). It also gives you the expected conjugations of verbs based on the rest of the prior sentence.
Can you think of any other writing strategies that we could add to any of the lists above?
References
Brown, H.D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An integrative approach to language pedagogy (4th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
Paige, R. M., Cohen, A. D., Kappler, B., Chi, J. C., & Lassegard, J. P. (2006). Maximizing study abroad: A students’ guide to strategies for language and culture learning and use (2nd ed.). Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.
A specific type of written or spoken text, such as novels, newspapers, blogs, speeches, conversations, etc
The practice of mixing languages in a flexible way, either in speaking or writing
Any language learned after the first language(s). The term "second language" does not necessarily refer to the 2nd language in time that a person learns. It can be a third, fourth, or other additional language
A process of interaction in which speakers mutually negotiate their intended meaning using strategies such as clarification questions, repetition, and rephrasing to convey a clear message
Of or relating to the vocabulary, words, or morphemes of a language