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Practicing L2 Writing Online

 Beyza Cayli

Practicing L2 Writing Online

 

Second and Foreign language teachers of English often hear their students’ complaints about having difficulties in writing in English. Among all the other language-related skills, writing in a second language might be the most challenging one to master especially when students cannot relate themselves to the given topics. Practice, on the other hand, is known to be the most effective way of improving writing skills in any language, but how can we encourage students to practice more?

Even though writing tasks that favor imitation of textual models used to be very popular, recent research show better results of the process approach. Boas (2011) states that the process approach enables a student-centered teaching atmosphere which in fact boosts student interest and involvement. By choosing a topic that is relevant to students’ cultural backgrounds, one can apply the basic principles of writing even online.

 Every step of writing including the prewriting, peer, and teacher feedback as well as revisions can be done online. Rather than building a whole new website, consider creating a blog since their interfaces are usually more user-friendly and they are easier to set up. For example, Boas (2011) chooses a topic related to Brazilian football players since her Brazilian students can benefit from their own background knowledge as well. Therefore, selecting a topic that students can relate to and bring their own cultures and interests could give them more willingness to practice their writing skills.

As students already are on a computer, your pre-writing activities can include access to online dictionaries, motor engines, or spell checkers. (Boas) 2011 gives links to related articles to monitor her students’ paraphrasing skills. Thus, directing students to similar texts or showing how to do the right research and find articles on the same genre increase learning the necessary elements in writing tasks implicitly. At this point, students can be asked to summarize what they have found with class by posting their findings on the online platform as well.

When it comes to drafting, students can work on structuring the essay together. Bikowski & Vithanage (2016) reports that collaboration helps students produce a better-written product. Handouts or templates on how to structure an essay based on its genre can also guide students to form better essays. After completing the essays, every group can be assigned to exchange their drafts online to peer-review before posting.  After receiving and giving feedback, it is time to post.  

Students can also be encouraged to leave comments or reactions on their classmates’ essays after posting their essays online.  In contrast to submitting an essay on paper to the teacher solely, in this way, students can reach more people and benefit from those comments. In short, using internet tools and working together on a topic that students are willing to write about has a lot of potentials to promote more practice and hence improvement in L2 writing.

References

Bikowski, D., & Vithanage, R. (2016). Effects of web-based collaborative writing on individual L2 writing development. Language Learning & Technology, 20(1), 79-99.

Boas, I. V. (2011). Process writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning networks in the classroom. In English Teaching Forum (Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 26-33). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037.

 

 

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