Creative Writing in Foreign Language Teaching
Contents:
Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Writing
I think I must have been reading too much Pablo Neruda. Despite the nagging worry that a native speaker would laugh at anything I put on paper, I finally managed to finish the poem after several hours. You can read it here. I believe that with practice anyone can improve their writing skills. The same is true for me when I keep practicing writing in a foreign language.
But now, after years of study, I can write not only in Spanish but also in Italian and French. Whenever that happens to me, I try to take it in stride. I remind myself that I still make occasional mistakes when I write in my native language too. Instead, look at them positively and use them as a learning opportunity.
Mistakes help you identify the areas you need more practice in. Make sure you understand why what you wrote was incorrect so that you can avoid making the same mistake again in the future. You can find similar apps for other languages. On Apple computers, for example, you can turn on keyboards for different languages. Check out my post below for more editing tools nearly all of these are for writing in English:.
I find I end up making the most errors when I try to directly translate my thoughts in English while writing in Spanish, Italian, or French.
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One way I avoid this is by giving myself plenty of time and not rushing myself when I write in a foreign language. It takes me a little bit longer to think in Spanish rather than English and then to process those thoughts onto the page, but I make far fewer errors when I do. Google Translate is also sometimes helpful in this situation. In each language I study, I try to read everything I can get my hands on: This will help you learn the vocabulary and style specific to that type of writing.
For example, a self-help article usually has a more conversational style than an essay you would write for a college professor. When I read in a foreign language, I also like to take note of idioms. These are phrases that are usually not taken literally and are generally only understood by those with a strong grasp of the language. Idioms are a great way to spice up your writing and make you sound more like a native speaker. If you start collecting idioms like I suggested in tip 4, I recommend storing them in your own personalized phrasebook.
I would argue, however, that it really merits its own role in the communicative curriculum, right from the beginning.
First, writing is a dominant mode of interpersonal communication, especially nowadays, there are blogs, people use computer-mediated communication, they text a lot. All of these need to be trained explicitly in the foreign language classroom as well. Second, writing gives students time to reflect, practice and express themselves in the foreign language in a more adult-like manner with more complex thoughts than when they have to speak without planning.
Third, writing may raise cognitive awareness of the rhythm of the language, it can help practice sound-symbol associations, connections between related lexical items, relationships between lexical items and grammar, among other things. Finally, writing can be a creative outlet that allows for a stronger affective connection to the language, possibly motivating learners to study it longer and to establish links to other users of the language, which then encourages them to keep practicing the foreign language even beyond the foreign language classroom.
In this module, we will talk about the different aspects of writing students need to learn how to do.
For example, how to generate ideas for content, applying vocabulary or grammar, and - in some languages - even learning how to use a different orthography. Teichmann in Timm In short, creative writing can not be generally defined. Contrary to traditional tasks every student produces an individual result cf. Thaler in Klippel After having defined creative writing in school, it is furthermore important to examine why creative writing should actually be part of foreign language teaching.
An important feature of the teaching of foreign languages is the holistic approach. If one wants information to be saved in different parts of the brain this approach is required cf. In the left hemisphere parts that are responsible for the logic, organising and planning functions can be found. The right hemisphere contains the creative part of the brain which is in charge of everything emotional, imaginative and associative.
Creative Writing
This part is often neglected in school. However, only if both halves of the brain are used simultaneously, can the information be saved for a longer period of time cf. In addition to that, processes that take place during creative writing can be compared to those of language acquisition. Language acquisition takes place through trying out and building hypotheses which are modified if they appear to be wrong or might have led to miscommunication.
In this context, it is psychologically important that one is willing to take a risk. It is equally important that one has cognitive strategies at hand that allow one to build hypotheses and modify them if they prove to be wrong.
How to Improve Your Writing Skills in a Foreign Language
These processes that take place in language acquisition have to be systematically encouraged and practiced in foreign language teaching cf. Creative writing poses a very good opportunity to improve those abilities, since it includes elements such as word formation and cohesion and coherency. Moreover, writing takes place much more slowly than talking so that the students have more time to automate those abilities without being under pressure cf.
The additional time enables students to hesitate and helps them to reinforce their abilities. Furthermore, they have enough time to come up with strategies in order to solve problems that occur when formulating a text in a foreign language. Especially students that have difficulty in learning foreign languages benefit from the lower pace in which writing takes place since they are under less pressure cf.
Another important aspect is that creative writing provides a chance for variation so that the often complained about monotony can be counteracted cf. The teacher can work with the students on many different creative tasks that can even appeal to all senses.
Creative writing in foreign language teaching Speaking spontaneously in the modern foreign languages classroom: Tools for supporting successful target. Creative writing in foreign language teaching. Carol Morgan. University of Bath. Introduction. The 'creative writing" referred to in the title I have taken to.
In addition, it is possible to allow students to write texts according to their own interests cf. All in all, it becomes clear that creative writing , although sometimes considered as non-productive and not sufficiently dealt with in the classroom, should be a central didactic component cf.
Creative writing cannot be considered as merely the production of a text in one step but has to be regarded as a process.