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Abstract
Writing is one of the most important language skills in learning a new language. It is a productive skill. Writing involves the selection of sensible words and sentences for making meaningful structures, paragraphs, and lengthy texts to convey a message to the reader
Since writing is a thinking process, it needs conscious composite skills such as mental psychological, rhetorical and critical. Hence writing is the act of transmitting thoughts, feelings, and ideas from ” up here” in the head to “down there” on paper.
Thus, an attempt, here, is made to present some important approaches to teaching writing. Controlled to the free approach, the free writing approach, the paragraph pattern approach, the grammar — syntax organization approach, the communication approach, the process approach are the few remarkable approaches in teaching writing.
1. Controlled-to-free-Approach:
The controlled – to- free -approach in writing is sequential. On it, students are first given sentence exercise, then paragraph to copy or manipulate grammatically. They might also change words or clauses or continue sentences. They work on given material and perform strictly prescribed operations on it. It is relatively easy for the students to write a great deal and avoid errors. The teacher’s job of marking paper is quick and easy. Only after reaching a high Intermediate or advanced level of proficiency, students are allowed to try some free writing. This approach stresses grammar. syntax and mechanics. Hence, it emphasizes accuracy than fluency or originality.
2. The-Free-Writing-Approach:
This approach stresses quantity than quality of writing. Teaching writing by assigning vast amounts of freewriting on a given topic, with only minimal correction of errors is the core concept of the freewriting approach. It emphasizes content and fluency rather than form. In the beginning, this approach is very difficult for the learners but later on putting words down on paper is not so frightening after all. It is thought to be effective only when it is applied to the learners of intermediate or advanced level. Thus, this approach is important as concern for “audience’ and ‘content’.
3. The Paragraph-Pattern-Approach:
The paragraph pattern approach is the third approach of teaching writing. Students copy paragraphs, analyze the form of model paragraphs and initiate model passages. They put scrambled sentences into paragraph order, they identify general and specific statements, they choose or invent an appropriate topic sentence, they insert or delete the sentences.
4. The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach:
The fourth approach of writing is the grammar-Syntax — Organization approach, This approach describes that writing can not be seen as composed of separate skills, which are learned one by one. The writer needs more than the appropriate vocabulary. She needs simple forms of verbs; an organizational plan-based chronology. Learners see the connection between what they are trying to write and what they need to write it. This approach links the purpose of a piece of writing to the forms that are needed to convey the message.
5. The Communicative Approach:
The Communicative Approach stresses the purpose of a Piece of writing and the audience. Learners are encouraged to behave like writers in real life and to ask themselves the crucial questions about purpose and audience. The writer thinks that writing is for a real reader. The relationship is extended to the students If the teacher is adopting this approach. Learners respond, rewrite, in other forms, summarize or make comments in a piece of writing. Learners are given to select appropriate content, language, and level of formality.
6. The process Approach:
Recently, the teaching of writing has begun to move away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing. When this approach is translated into classroom context. it calls for providing a positive, encouraging, and collaborative workshop environment within which students, With ample time and minimal interference, can work through their composing processes. The teacher’s role is to help students develop viable strategies for rehearsing, drafting, revising, and editing. The successful use of their behaviors ultimately gives the learner better control both of the content and form of what they write. Writing, from a process perceptive, is a complex, recursive, and creative process of a set of different behaviors. Learning to write emails an efficient and effective composting process.
