The document discusses practical tasks for mastering the mechanics of writing in English, including focusing on sound-spelling correspondences, letter recognition, and meaningful writing exercises that move from individual words and sentences to longer texts. It also addresses differences in writing systems and provides examples of early writing tasks for learners depending on whether their first language uses an alphabetic, syllabic, or logographic writing system.

1. Practical Tasks for Mastering the
Mechanics of Writing and Going
Just Beyond
Presenter: Melika Rajabi

2. What is involved in mastering the
mechanics of writing
Communication is imp: interaction
When the goal of
interaction is meaningful
communication
Writing skill emerges
Up-to-date
digital message
on PC, cell
phone, …
Traditional
paper & pencil

3. What are the imp components when
learning to write a new lg?
• Writer reader
• At very beginning level when Ss can create
smallest meaningful messages 2 aspects of
writing stressed:
1. Values on the goal of writing
2. Values on the perceived reader audience
Interactive process

4. • Because writing interaction lacks feedback, the writer
should:
1. anticipate the reader’s reactions
2. Adhere to Grice cooperative principle
• If necessary clues are available in text, the reader will
interpret the text due to the writer’s presumed intention
• As linguistic accuracy, clarity of presentation &
organization of ideas supply clues for interpretation, they
support the efficacy of communicative act
In ESL/ EFL context, writing activities at first focus on
mechanical aspects of writing skill and then move to a
more communicative goal

5. Writing systems
Ss L1 has a writing system based on
Meaning: the graphic sign is linked to a meaning in the
real world: Chinese
Sounds: The graphic sign is linked to a spoken sound or
a syllable (a phoneme in English/ Japanese katakana
writing system)
meaning
sounds

6.  Many lgs in the sound-based writing group use an
alphabetic system in which a graphic sign stands
for a phoneme. Korean
 Some of the alphabetic writing systems are more
transparent and consistent in representing these
correspondences than others. Italian & French
 English: less transparent, complicated rules for
linking graphemes with phonemes.
Phoneme-grapheme or sound-
to-letter correspondences

7. Up & down/ in columns
Traditional Chinese and Japanese
 Direction
left to right: Roman, Cyrillic
In lines
right to left: Arabic, Urdu
European and middle Eastern lgs

8. Early writing in a new lg
 Learners L1= Roman alphabet
- have the appropriate direction of R,W
- recognize & use letters with same shape
- aware of the phonological processing route
 Learners L1 employs alphabetic system Roman alphabet
Focus on:
1. Appropriate direction of R & W
2. Learning to recognize & produce actual graphic
characters
3. Learning both regularities and irregularities of the Eng
writing system

9.  Learners L1= meaning-based writing system
1. Need careful training in associating a graphic sign with a vocal
sound
2. recognizing sequences of such graphic signs as words
1. Appropriate direction of R & W
2. Learning both regularities and
irregularities of the Eng writing
system
Partially familiar
with phonological
process
Phonemic awareness

10. The mechanics of reading and writing
 Early stage of letter recognition, letter discrimination,
sound-to-letter correspondence, word recognition &
basic rules of spelling.
Beyond this stage
•Expand the spelling rules
•Focus on punctuation and capitalization
•Cover the comprehension and production of sentences &
short paragraphs

11. Sound-spelling correspondence
 English has a systematic set of sound-spelling
correspondences
 Helps ESL/EFL teacher to combine teaching
- phonetic units + graphic units
-give Ss practice in pronunciation along with
practice in spelling

12.  Learners L1 alphabet = English
 Learners L1 alphabet different W sys
syllable-based sys
meaning-based sys
Teacher: emphasis the recognition of every consonant letter
The English consonants
Focus= unique
features of Eng
& irregularities

13. The English consonants
 Sounds of consonant letters depend on the
environment they occur
/k/ followed by vowel a, o, u (call, cook, cup)
consonant l, r, k (click, crew, rocker)
/s/ followed by vowel e, i, y ( cell, cinch, cyst)
c

14. The English vowels
 Complex sound-spelling correspondence
 Two- basic types of syllable environment in English
orthography.
1. CVC for short vowels
2. CV or CVCe for long vowels
 Place too much emphasis on length than phonetic
quality. (pin, pine)

15. How do we teach mechanics?
1. To enhance letter recognition when learners come from
a different W sys
2. To practice sound-spelling correspondences via all 4 lg
skills
3. To help the learner move from letters and words to
meaningful sentences & larger units of discourse

16. Three major types of recognition tasks
Matching tasks
Obj: practice quick & effective recognition of Eng letters
Drills: similar to native speakers
 Ss distinguish certain letter from other similar letters
 Match words beginning or ending with the same small or
capital letter
 Search for a certain letter within a group of different letters
Advanced stage: Ss match words with pic & short sentences
with pic

17. Writing tasks
Obj: allow Ss to produce the shapes of the letters both
as a recognition and a production task
•Tracing letters
•Ss focus on detailed characteristics of the letters
Only for Ss with
different
writing sys

18. Meaningful sound-spelling
correspondence
Obj: Ss match individual sounds or sequences of sounds
& words with their written form
Focus: listening & recognizing the sound corresponding
to the relevant written form
Teachers= give opportunities for copying
Challenging: create sent. for new context
Imp feature: accustom learners to using the appropriate
capitalization rule in Eng and some basic rules of punctuation

19. More advanced writing tasks
 Focus: accuracy and content with communicative goal
 Three types of writing tasks
1. Practical writing tasks
2. Emotive writing tasks
3. School-oriented tasks

20.  The task description
 The content description
 The audience description
 Format cues
 Linguistic cues
 Spelling and punctuation cues

21. 1. Practical writing tasks
- focus: spelling and morphology
- Lists: things to do, things completed, shopping lists
- notes & messages left for another person or sent via email
- completion of forms on paper or on computer & preparation of
invitations, greetings, …
2. Emotive writing tasks
- personal writing: letter to friends, narratives
3. school-oriented tasks
- writing activities should be given attention at linguistic accuracy level
and at message transmission level
- Dialogue journal writing at the early stages
- Special discussion forums