Graham Ward: Tips to Improve Writing Skills at B2+

 

APAC ELT Convention 2019

 

Graham Ward: Tips to Improve Writing Skills at B2+
 

As a long-time teacher, examiner, director of studies, and Cambridge team leader, Graham Ward has a few things to say about how language learners can improve their writing. The first of these, released to murmurs of indignation from the audience, is that responsibility for students’ writing skills rests squarely on the shoulders of their teachers. Only by setting up our writing exercises thoughtfully, Graham explains to a sea of open-mouthed teachers, can we hope to ensure that our students are able to plan their writing effectively. Mouths close forgivingly and heads nod knowingly, as Graham recounts a lifetime of correcting writings in which the most salient problems have been a lack of structure and a failure to answer the question. The audience, now firmly on the speaker’s side, relax and slide down in their seats, settling in for the next hour to hear how our set-up can push students over the seemingly insurmountable barrier between B2 and C1 writing.

One big problem that students have is separating language from content. If teachers can get students into the habit of producing their content first, it frees up cognitive capacity for them to focus on language when they come to putting pen to paper. When preparing students for a classic advantages v disadvantages essay, for example, the teacher might split the class into groups and ask each one to think of just two advantages or disadvantages. Then, the class is split again, with each group brainstorming content for an introduction or conclusion. Once the class has pooled their ideas (perhaps using SimpleDifferent or Google Docs) all students are tasked with writing essentially the same essay — freed from the burden of generating ideas, they simply need to connect the pieces of the puzzle and focus on producing advanced- or proficiency-level language. Such activities will filter into students’ own essay-writing habits, but Graham stresses that for this to happen, teachers must move away from simply handing students an essay title for homework, collecting it, marking the errors, and returning it in the hope that students will somehow improve of their own accord. A few faces in the audience turn red — who is to say if it is the overzealous central heating that is to blame, or this all-too-familiar but recently derided teaching practice?

 

 

Having established that teachers must take time out of their course plan to dedicate themselves to set-up, Graham moves on to feedback, and its central role in improving writing skills.

For feedback to be effective, it must result in a revision of the writing. Only then can progress happen.

 

 

Graham has the following suggestions:

● Make time for 1:1 feedback with each student. Even if it results in a disservice to the rest of the class, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
● Refrain from grading every piece of work - force learners to appraise their own writing.
● Incentivise writers by offering to give a grade to the revised essay.
● Have students keep a writing journal to record progress and feedback.
● Devise and use a simple correction code, e.g. WW for wrong word, MW for missing word, WF for wrong form.
● Encourage learners to produce one ambitious sentence per paragraph. Narrowing students’ attention can help to avoid the kind of verbose, messy writing that often occurs at higher levels.
● Don’t make feedback too explicit - learners must work to realise where they’ve gone wrong.

 

Graham demonstrates the inutility of interpretive dance as a medium for feedback.





Despite Graham’s promises to make the slides available after the session, the teachers in the room are scribbling as if possessed. It’s 7 p.m. on a Friday night, and these tips are too good to consign to the cava-induced fog that many attendees know is in store for them.

Finally, Graham turns his attention to Cambridge evaluation.

 

 

 

● He suggests adding to the Cambridge criteria Planning and Revision, and giving learners a mark for each. This is a good way to ensure that students are setting up their writings, and taking feedback on board.
● If your students didn’t submit a great writing, but managed to answer the question fully, there’s no reason to give them a 3.5 or a 4. Just give them a 5 instead of needlessly holding back.
● Encourage students to practise in their own time using Write & Improve.
● Encourage reading for pleasure. This is the single most reliable way of ensuring student progress.

Graham closes his talk by directing teachers to the website of Anne Robinson (not that one), where we can find a wealth of resources from  a senior presenter for Cambridge ESOL, Spain. He receives a thunderous round of applause, and teachers filter out of the room in pairs and threes, muttering excitedly about their plans to make their students rewrite all of their essays from the previous year.

 

Summary written by Matt Evans, EIM Teacher.

 

 

Matt is an EFL teacher at the UB's language school. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics, also from the University of Barcelona, and is interested in motivation, learner autonomy, and pronunciation teaching.