Why teaching writing can feel like an uphill struggle

When it comes to language learning, writing is about as tough as it gets.?Certainly, speaking demands quick thinking, but it’s also often more transactional and people are generally more forgiving of errors in spoken language.?

Students can find the demands of good writing time-consuming and anxiety-inducing, so it’s no wonder writing presents a challenge to ESOL teachers the world over. Let’s consider some of the factors that make it so hard to develop students’ all-important writing skills. ?

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Never enough time??

Proficient writing brings together multiple and varied skills, such as grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, imagination, planning, linking, and register (Madylus, 2015).??

When classroom time is so precious, it’s understandable that teachers find it difficult to develop all these building blocks individually, let alone combining them into more complex writing exercises.?

Not only are many skills involved, there are also various approaches to writing to consider:?functional, expressive, or genre-specific to name just a few (Hyland, 2019).?

Each one demands that the student develop different abilities and, therefore, needs considered time from the teacher to structure lessons and exercises appropriately. With lesson schedules tightly packed just to cover the basics, it’s small wonder that the classroom time dedicated to writing is often limited.??

To help find time for writing in class, teachers could consider incorporating it in small ways into their lessons, such as creating a short summary to a listening activity or having students draft scripts that they then present aloud in the classroom. ??

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Writing is usually an independent activity?

Students often complete writing practice exercises alone, outside of the classroom, where they don’t have the benefit of immediate guidance or feedback.?This creates longer feedback cycles than other skills practice – such as grammar exercises that can be checked in the back of a book or speaking practice done live in the classroom – which can limit the speed of development. ?

Writing exercises are typically assigned as homework tasks, and usually submitted to the teacher. Worrying about making errors that the teacher will judge can damage confidence and limit students’ willingness to take risks and work beyond their comfort zones (Ghafar et al., 2023).?

One way to overcome this nervousness is to encourage collaborative writing. Instead of always submitting work to the teacher, students can work together, providing a supportive environment. ?

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Writing is cultural and contextual?

Different cultures – and different contexts within societies – have distinct conventions and styles when it comes to the written word. Learners may not be familiar with English writing styles, so they must navigate both the language and its stylistic requirements. ?

Teachers can support students by giving them lots of different models of writing and ample opportunities to explore different English styles in their writing practice.?

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How Versa Language was born?

As we have just seen, teaching writing is so hard because it touches upon many aspects of language, culture, and psychology. These challenges are what inspired us to create Versa Language in the first place.?

We wanted to:??

• Allow students to practice outside of the class, whenever and wherever suits them?

• Shorten the feedback loop by providing point-of-error corrections and suggestions?

• Provide a low-stakes environment so students can feel free to try out new structures and make mistakes – the LLM won’t judge!?

• Give insights to the teacher as to how their students’ practice is going?

• Give Business English students writing practice that models the style and form of the professional world. ??

Language schools can contact us to find out how more about how Versa supports learners in their journey towards fluent communication.?

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Madylus, Olha. (2015) ‘Why is writing so hard?’, Teaching English with Oxford, 16 Feb 2015. https://teachingenglishwithoxford.oup.com/2015/02/16/why-is-writing-so-hard/? (Accessed 12 Sept 2024)?

Hyland, K. (2019), Second Language Writing, 2nd Ed, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.?

Ghafar et al. (2023), ‘Teaching writing to Students of English as a foreign language: The Challenges Faced by Teachers’, Journal of Digital Learning and Distance Education, 2(2) July 2023, pp. 483-490. https://doi.org/10.56778/jdlde.v2i2.123?