Writing

Is writing a productive skill or receptive skill? What does this mean?

The text type we write will depend on the purpose for which we are writing. An academic essay and a text message are both examples of writing but of course there will be major differences in layout, structure, register and grammar.

Just like we saw in Unit 5: Reading, writing also has a variety of subskills. Depending on the needs of their students, teachers generally focus on  the two broad areas of communicating ideas effectively i.e. with cohesion and coherence, and accuracy in writing.

Communicating ideas effectively could include practising subskills such as choosing the correct register for the text type, correctly using topic sentences and the effective use of paragraphs. 

A focus on accuracy also requires various writing subskills and these include areas such as correct spelling, punctuation and the right choice of vocabulary. Teachers use a variety of activities to help their students to focus on their accuracy e.g. adding punctuation (see example below), proofreading tasks and sentence transformation.

From here

Two distinct methods of teaching writing are the product and process approaches.
In the product approach, students are provided with a model of a text type which shows the features of that type of writing, including layout, structure, register etc. Students then use this example to help them produce their own writing.

The process approach is a step-by-step way of guiding students through the writing beginning with pre-writing activities such as brainstorming, followed by drafting, proofreading and re-drafting.

From here

Can you think of a teaching context when one approach would be more beneficial than the other?

For a clear comparison of process and product writing, take a look at this article from the Teaching English website.