Teaching Writing in a Multilevel Classroom

Abstract:

This work aims to analyze a specific pre-intermediate level classroom in a private Englis h
school in the Northeast of Brazil. By examining the methodology applied by the school,
this study tries to offer a solution on how to best assess and enhance student’s skills
including vocabulary level, depth of thought and grammar. This article tries to have a
closer look at the writing methods used and to determine which teaching strategy is most
effective in relation to learning in the perception of students and teachers.

Introduction

There are six students in our study group. Although they are in a pre-intermediate level,
each student presents a particular skill level in vocabulary. In addition, these students
have different purposes for learning English and some of them have more contact with
the language than others.

In the present study we analyzed six students: Two students between 16 and 29 years old;
Two between 30 and 49 years old; Two students over 50 years old.

The purposes, according to students, are as follows:

• Personal growth.

• Better job opportunities.

• Travel and tourism.

• To improve family relationship with American in-laws.

Methodology applied

The students learnt English through mnemonic day-by-day. In this stage, they have been
having contact with English for thirty minutes per day at home plus three hours a week
attendance at school. Writing/Conversation classes are given around a specific topic in
which students discuss in the classroom. Little to none brainstorming is made around
correlated subject and students are requested to do a composition at home to bring the
following class.
For instance, a conversation sheet about “Job interview” would be given to students. They
read the material in class, solve any vocabulary questions and in sequence they talk about
their personal experience. At the end of the class, students are given a theme in which
they can choose a title to write about.

In this stage, they write freely about their topic and one week later the students bring the
composition for correction. The teachers then correct their grammar but neither follow up
nor feedback on the content is given.

Implications

As students are not required to correct or rewrite their text, most of them reach a plato
where they write within their comfort zone, thus, using the writing process just to produce
a task given and not as a tool for literacy growth. As a result, most students are not
challenged at the task due to the fact that they have done their part just by handing in the
composition made. Other students who have more difficulties and don’t have a wide
vocabulary are left alone in the writing process and feel it hard to attend the assignme nt
expectations.

Graves (1978) identified several ways that writing is important in our lives :

• As a contribution to the development of a person, writing is a highly complex act

that demands analysis and synthesis of many levels of thinking.

• It develops initiative and courage.

• And it contributes to reading comprehension.

Why change the approach on teaching writing?

In 1984, the School Improvement Program of the North West Regional Educationa l
Laboratory published a synthesis of the research on effective schooling practices
presenting a summary of the findings presented in nearly three hundred research
documents.

Taking into considerations the major findings from the research on teaching writing we
can conclude that when the teaching approach emphasizes writing as a process rather than
as a product, student’s achievement is higher. Students in this subject group have the
teacher making the major writing decisions as the theme, form, length and serve as a sole
audience.

Insofar as possible, the students do the assignment alone and know that the paper turned
in will be the only version, thus, they don’t care about understanding this process.

Suggested methodology

Originated by teachers’ classroom experiences and more than twenty years of research,
the Process-oriented Approach to teach writing is the best option to increase students’
performance and skill and reduce the gap in a multilevel classroom since this approach
has a number of distinct stages that enable students to apply their knowledge. The
additions suggested by this article are:

Pre-writing

The inclusion of pre-writing such as brainstorming, graphic organizers, T-checks,

corrections symbols, bullets, drawing, talking, etc. Research has shown that students that
engage in pre-writing presents greater writing achievement than those who don’t.

Drafting

By using correction symbols and focusing on content rather than on form, students better
their writing experience without the pressure of getting it right the first time.

Revising

The students would make whatever changes they felt necessary as deleting some
unnecessary parts, changes in syntax and sentence structure, looking at the compositio ns
as a whole, analyzing the structure, if it was written in a paragraph style if there are any
loose sentence. It is made with the teacher’s input, sometimes even with peer
collaboration, turning the final result in a superior product.

Editing

In this final step, students would try enhance vocabulary choices and pay more attention
to the mechanics such as spelling, punctuations, grammar and handwriting.
Conclusion

By turning the assignment in a writing process rather than a writing task students shifts
their attention to how they could improve and each student could grow within their
particular skills level, in this way, the multilevel differences in the classroom would be
diminished and rather than stand in student’s way, these multilevel skills would become
an asset as peer collaboration would be incentivized and students enhancement would
flourish naturally.