Writing (Productive Skills)

A teacher assigns a 250-word formal essay for homework, collects the papers two days later, covers them in red ink highlighting every spelling and punctuation mistake, assigns a grade, and hands them back. The students glance at the grade and immediately slide the paper into their bags without reading the corrections. This traditional approach treats writing purely as an assessment product rather than a developmental cognitive skill.

Core Theory & Terminology

1. Product Approach vs. Process Approach

As Jeremy Harmer (How to Teach Writing) and David Nunan delineate, writing instruction is divided into two primary orientations:

• Product Approach: Focuses on the final written outcome. Learners analyze model texts, copy structural templates, and produce an error-free copy. Traditional, linear, and heavily imitation-based.
• Process Approach: Treats writing as a dynamic, non-linear, recursive cognitive activity involving multiple stages of generation and revision.

2. The Genre Approach

Combines the explicit scaffolding of the Product Approach with the functional awareness of discourse. Writing is framed as a response to a specific social context, audience, and register (e.g., formal complaint letter vs. casual blog post).

Key Stages of Genre-Based Scaffolding

1. Building Context / Schema: Exploring audience, tenor, and purpose.
2. Modeling & Text Analysis: Deconstructing a model text for layout, discourse markers, and register.
3. Joint Construction: The teacher and class collaboratively compose a text on the board.
4. Independent Construction: Learners write their own text with process scaffolding.

In the classroom

Teacher educators look for clear process-oriented and genre-aware writing instruction:

1. In Formal Lesson Planning: Clearly specify the target genre, target audience, and discourse features (e.g., linking words, formal register) on your lesson plan.
2. On Observed Lessons: Include interactive peer-editing stages using clear checklists rather than making writing a purely silent, solitary homework assignment.
3. Mentor Feedback: Observers evaluate how feedback is given. Using a Correction Code (e.g., WO = Word Order, Gr = Grammar, Sp = Spelling) encourages self-correction and active redrafting.

Practical Classroom Application

Peer-Editing Checklist Framework

When conducting a process writing lesson, provide learners with a structured peer-editing sheet:

Reflection & Further Reading

Reflective Question

Do your writing lessons give students opportunities to redraft their work based on peer feedback, or is every written task a ‘one-shot’ product graded solely by the teacher?

Key Reference Areas

• Harmer, J. — How to Teach Writing.
• Nunan, D. — Language Teaching Methodology (Chapter 5: “Writing”).
• Scrivener, J. — Learning Teaching (Chapter 9: “Writing”).