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Findings and Suggestions

5.3 Suggestions for teaching and testing writing
1. Some of the lessons given in their coursebook could be used to make the learners understand how the resources of the written language can be used to establish and maintain contact with the reader in order to get their meaning across ( Tasks 4 and 6 ).  Supplementary materials could also be prepared based on the them of the coursebook lessons suited to the leval of the learners   ( Task 5 and appendix 7a and b ).  Some of the coursebook lessons and supplementary materials could be used to make the learners obtain practice in jotting down points, organizing them and presenting them in the form of unified paragraphs (Task 5)

2. Learners could be engaged in a pair-work activity where they have to collect information from their pair-partners (Tasks 1 and 2).  In this type of activity they have to ask questions with a specific purpose to collect some information about the daily activities of each other and them they have to record this information carefully.  The information that is recorded is meaningful to both the pair partners since one has supplied the information and the other has collected it and recorded it.  Besides though the basic framework is the same all the learners do not write paragraphs, which match word for word.  As against this writing about the daily activities of the Postman or the Washerman which are part of the coursebook lessons learners usually write the same information given in the coursebook (Appendix 4b).

3. If learners are given a chance to express their own ideas and feelings they would be able to select points which interest them and write an individual composition. In the present experiment even when learners were writing about a topic like ‘My hometown’, the points they included in the passage were not the same, although all of them belonged to the same town     (Task 7).  The points they selected and the reasons they gave for liking their hometowns were different for different learners. (4.32.2.f).

4. When learners are made to work in groups to discuss a topic, make a pool of ideas, select relevant points, organise them properly and present them as a unified paragraph using linking and sequencing words, they learn not only to write a paragraph but also some of the important processes of writing.  Again when they learn to check each other’s words and help each other in editing and revision of the written work, they learn to read their own write-ups from the reader’s point of view.

5. Learners present achievement level has to be taken into account while planning writing activities, for otherwise from what they are used to do, and what they are expected to do, may be too sudden and hence not successful.  In the present experiment a familiar activity like answering comprehension questions based on the learners to patterns of interaction in group and pair work activities (Task 4).

6. When the learners are not used to doing a particular activity it is important to give clear, unambiguous instructions about what they are expected to do, probably in mother-tongue in the beginning.  In the present experiment when learners were to ask each other questions and record the information collected, in addition to giving simple instructions, the activity was demonstrated by collecting information from a learner and recording it on the blackboard (Task 2). In the beginning stages of this of this activity a lot of writing was done along with the learner on the blackboard.