Preparing an EAL class for IELTS Writing Tasks

Theories and Practice in TESOL B00337802 Introduction Our Teaching Practice is based on different conceptions which influence and determine our professional identity. To be precise, there are the science-research conceptions where the main focus is on the learning Principles and the Theory- Philosophy conceptions in which the theory is the crucial factor that regulates the preparation, the resources and the implementation of the Practice (Richards & Renandya, 2002) . Also there are the Value Based Conceptions and the Art-Craft in which the teacher develops his/her strategy according to a certain situation embodying his/her personal views and ways (Richards & Renandya, 2002) . The conceptions above have influenced different approaches that are conflicting and many times it’s really difficult to put into practice some theoretical guidelines, Especially when they are complex deriving from interdisciplinary research. In this Essay we will present research that is based on the facilitation and improvement of the writing skills of English Learners who aim in IELTS examinations. As Raimes points out ‘’Today, with a burgeoning of conflicting theories, planning a writing course is like walking a minefield. It involves so many choices about where to go next, what is the best step to take, and what is the best route to the goal. Taking a wrong step in this context might not be as dire as stepping on a mine, but it can undermine our confidence and detonate our students’ resistance’’ (Richards & Renandya, 2002) . Main Body IELTS has become an English language proficiency test over the past decade. Its target is to offer a reliable indicator of English language proficiency that is relevant across a wide choice of linguistic contexts. The Academic version of the test functions as a ‘gate keeper’ for the admission of International Students into Universities where English is the Mother-tongue. A number of different tasks give the learners the opportunity to demonstrate their level of English (Golder ,Reeder & Fleming, 2011). In IELTS learners of English, among the other skills, are also examined in writing. According to Brown (2000), English Learners have to develop in the same way their Listening, Speaking, Writing and Reading skills. Being a productive skill of high requirements Writing is the most difficult skill to reach a Proficient level (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000). In fact, mastery of writing skills is seen as one of the most contributing factors that can lead to success in an IELTS test. In the first Task of the IELTS Writing test, candidates are asked to describe a graphic that is presented to them. That could include organizing, presenting, and comparing data; describing the stages of a process or procedure. In Task 2, candidates are given a hasty with an opinion to which they have to express their views in essay format. Essays could present a solution to a problem; present and justify an opinion; compare and contrast evidence, opinions, and implications; or evaluate and challenge ideas, evidence or an argument (UCLES, 2006). Writing in a foreign language is more complex as it needs a deep knowledge of Pragmatic features of the Language and the use of Lexis in different contexts. Evidence comes from Huang (2007) who suggests that learners need a great deal of exposure to reading materials emphasizing new lexis in order to better retrieve Second Language vocabulary in their productive skills. Also, learning pragmatics involves learning linguistic behaviors that are reflective of values and norms of a given culture (Taguchi, 2011). As a process writing as a classroom activity includes the four basic writing stages planning, drafting (writing), revising (redrafting) and editing and moreover presenting, evaluating and post-writing. In the writing lesson plans researchers have developed, based on theories, procedures that includes their personal style ( Art and Craft Conception) and Communicative activities ( Theory Conception). Sanonguthai (2011) for example referencing Westfall and McMarthy (2004) that are consistently in favor of presenting some reading materials as a starting-off point for IELTS candidates and Shulman (2004) who claims that in order to build up critical thought in students teacher’s main role is to share necessary arguments and perspectives beforehand with the students, proposes debate sessions. Sanongunthai (2011) points out that a classroom debate can be considered one of the most effective way in training the students to write better and think more critically, having IELTS Academic Writing Task 2 as their main goal. This approach of teaching cannot be characterised groundbreaking, as it does encourage students to brainstorm, draft, write , feedback, revise and edit in a cyclical fashion. In this process, we should also bear in mind classroom management. Classroom management refers to the ways in which teachers manage a class in order to make it maximally productive for language learning (Richards & Renandya, 2002). In this direction we plan lessons taking decisions about the pedagogical dimensions of the lesson but, at the same time, another important aspect of a lesson is this management of our classroom. This includes provoking students’ attention, upholding their engagement and put them to work into pairs or groups (teamwork). If these aspects of a lesson are not well handled by a teacher, much of the time available for teaching can be lost in nonproductive activity (Richards & Renandya, 2002). Furthermore, except from the process and the classroom management, there’s a healthy controversy about what the content of writing classes should be, and teachers use any or all of the following: personal experience, social issues, cultural issues, literature, or the content of other subject areas (Richards & Renyanda, 2002). In addition, effective language learning contains Research with the intention to enable teachers to know which tasks can best smooth the acquisition of English language structures and functions that at the same time incorporates the so-called Needs Analysis, in the preparation, and the Guided Discovery, in the implementation, of our lessons. One of the most groundbreaking changes in the theory is there is a lot of theoretical talk about student-centered classrooms, and teachers can discover its significance when they reflect on the teaching experience in their own classes and their own experience as students (Richards & Renyanda, 2002). Writing reflective teaching journals and observe other teachers is proposed as an enforcement factor to our practice as teachers. The “learner-centered curriculum” is a term used to describe approaches to language teaching which are centered on the view that learners are self-directed. Learners are seen to learn in different ways and to have different needs and interests (Richards & Renyanda, 2002). More specifically and focused on linguistic terms and lexicon Kennedy and Thorp (2007) give emphasis on idioms (It is not my cup of tea) and emphasizers (definitely, certainly, precisely). As crucial for the learners to achieve higher scores in IELTS writing task 2.In support of the above we can cite that there is a correlation between collocation competence and writing ability (Heeyoung , Jong, 2012) and furthermore, Huang (2007) suggesting that learners need a broad contact to authentic texts emphasizing new lexis in order to better integrate new linguistic features in their writing. It is therefore essential for teachers to offer students with a lot of opportunities to communicate in the target language, in both written and oral forms. Theory has also played its role in our perception about students’ errors. To be precise, Mitchell and Myles (2004) claim that language errors are typical and unavoidable in the procedure of learning. They claim that studying the errors, we can disclose a developing system of the learners’ language. This system, according to them, is dynamic (Divsar & Heydari, 2017). Similar findings we have from Hou (2016) who helped students correct their mistakes, both on Grammar and Vocabulary, starting from them. Grounded on the identified errors teachers should discover the base of the misunderstandings and misconceptions and work to eradicate them. Agustina and Juning’s (2015) study showed that three types of errors occurred most frequently: a) the misformation in the use of tense form, b) the errors in omission of noun/verb inflection, and finally, c) many clauses that contained unnecessary phrases. Also, supporting learners to build confidence in order to positively influence their performance in the IELTS test is of high importance and theory influenced by Educational Psychology has also determine modern approaches on the teaching procedures .The creation of an environment in which students express their views, ideas and questions without any fear of being critisised negatively is also essential (Hansen and Liu 2005). Also in the direction of building a safe environment we should work to encourage them to anticipate the examiner’s questions without anxiety and clearly present what they can do. Raoofi et al (2012) found that self-confidence can be a robust pointer of performance in a task than actual ability. That because students with high self- confidence are more probable to engage with a task. If we focus, more practically, on the IELTS Task 1 and 2 assessment criteria Key words and phrases are things like progression, cohesive devices, referencing, substitution, paragraphing , clear central topic (O'Kane, 2017),. As teachers, these are areas which we have to keep in mind when working with our students, so that we can help them to write coherent and cohesive essays. To make it clear, coherence gives the sense that a piece of discourse has overall meaning, direction and clarity and cohesion relates to how sentences and parts of sentences link together. According to that Lack of explanation, Information that is not arranged logically and no cohesive devices/transitional words and phrases are typical problematic areas (O'Kane, 2017). Another implication from the theory is the differentiation of the planned learning outcomes. This is not enough as without support and guidance given in a personalized way for our students and the adaption tasks and activities we cannot expect significant differences. For example differentiate the word count so that weaker writers are not expected to produce the same amount of words at the start of their course, give different essay questions to different learners according to complexity/challenge, provide idea prompts or language prompts for weaker writers and offer writing frames for weaker writers so they can οrganise their ideas effectively (Algozzine, Anderson, 2007). One significant study by Mickan, Slater, and Gibson (2000) found that IELTS candidates’ comprehension of the writing prompts was influenced by their own sociocultural knowledge of the topic of the prompt, ultimately affecting the candidates’ ability to produce appropriate written responses. This idea of a student’s cultural-specific knowledge of topics leading to writing difficulties is not new (Myles, 2002). When learners’ first and second language cultures do not operate under the same values and norms, or when learners do not agree with second Language norms, linguistic forms that encode target norms are not easily acquired (Taguchi, 2011). Conclusion In this Essay trying to analyse how theory has impacted on what we do in the classroom, we came across numerous research and theories that have to do with the Process of a writing lesson and the content of it. Also, we focus on theories about student- centered classrooms, classroom management, opportunities of students to communicate and how socio-cultural backgrounds influence our students’ performance. Furthermore more connected to the target language we presented views according to the coherence, the cohesion, the idioms, the emphasizers and the errors in students’ texts. 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