STRATEGIES OF PROCESS APPROACH TO GUIDE STUDENTS’WRITTEN PRODUCTION

INSTITUCION EDUCATIVA DISTRITAL REPÚBLICA DEL ECUADORZONE 4th

Presented by: Ana Virginia Ariza MartínezGroup C

To: Melba L. CárdenasTámara Cháves

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIAPFPD RED PROFILE

Bogotá, December, 2004

STRATEGIES OF PROCESS WRITING APPROACH TO GUIDE STUDENTS’ WRITTEN PRODUCTION

1. JUSTIFICATION

A generalized discouraging attitude towards our educational system has taken position of students in public schools. English classes are not the exception. The causes of this growing problem are a lot and diverse, they are not a secret for anybody but I do not intend to go deeply on them.

English level at school is very low, and writing is the least developed of skills. Many reasons can be the cause of this: we do not know how to work with this tremendously complex process, it demands a great amount of time, students’ written compositions discourage us and we do not know how to deal with the problem, etc. That is why I want to make emphasis on it and help students to improve compositions. Teachers must struggle every day looking for the best alternatives to motivate our learners and try to improve the learning process. As there is a constant search for different strategies, methodologies, activities etc. to get the goal, I have found this interesting aspect to focus on. I know that writing is a very complex process that gathers different skills, in other words it is a challenge for me to improve it..

On the other hand, writing makes part of the communicative competence, main goal of English subject, which Savignon (1997, p.14) describes as “a continuous process of expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning”.

2. FOCUS

What happens with students’ written production when they apply process writing strategies?

How can I guide students to write by following process writing strategies?

How are students’ reactions to process writing experiences?

3. OBJECTIVE

Two main objectives have driven me to start this research:

To redress the imbalance that exists at school as in most schools in Bogotá, with respect to the attention that teachers devote to the language skills. I mean, we usually pay much more attention to listening, reading and speaking than to writing (see fig. 1)

Figure 1.

To improve the students’ written compositions by using strategies of the process-writing approach

4. TYPE OF PROJECT

It is a combination of research and innovation. A research one because it is a process that is going to be carried out to solve the problem of students’ written compositions, and innovation because this process implies several changes in order to improve.

Writing is a problem that has been identified into a specific context. English composition at I.E.D. Rep. Ecuador is a daunting task for our students. As I mentioned before, teachers keep struggling to improve this practice. However, if we do not undertake a substantial change, the results will continue the same. As

the change is involved, a consistent evaluation and a reflection about the process is a need.

This research is also co-operative action research since ideas and expectations of all participants in the community can be involved.

5. CONTEXT

Institución Educativa Distrital República del Ecuador is located in zone 4th in the south east of Bogotá City. It has two branches: A and B and two shifts: morning and afternoon, with about 500 students per shift and branch. I work for branch A with teenagers –aged 12 to 20.

Our ELT curriculum is based on communicative approach according to “estándares curriculares”. We know it is necessary to foster the students’ communicative competence in English in spite of the several difficulties we must face, i.e. large classes, social and familiar circumstances and the little interest students have got in learning.

PEI is a matter of work right now. Mission and Vision are being reconsidered but the final work is not finished yet. So I can say that we have not got any PEI so far. However, the development of communicative competence in English is contemplated in the Vision.

With respect to participants, there are important aspects to bear in mind. First of all, we, as teachers are not used to writing, so we can not expect so much from students unless there is substantial change, mainly when we do not have even adopted a systematic process for writing lessons. With these former aspects and what is more with so large classes, so little interest in learning, few hours of English classes a week (2 or 3), waste of time because of different activities, and discourage, among others, the result is obvious. Students are low-achievers in general, but the least developed skill is writing.

I selected a group of 36 students from 9th grade (901) to work on the project. They are boys and girls aged 14 to 16.

From this group I took a sample of five pupils who are average students but they rarely miss classes, they work in class, and make big efforts to improve. Fortunately this group is collaborative, students accept suggestions in a positive way and work in class as well as in the house. These students’ literacy is not well developed, as I have just mentioned. Sometimes I get compositions from controlled

practice. For free practice they are used to producing just simple ideas and some of them dare to group these into a supposed paragraph. Connecting ideas and getting coherence in a text is a daunting task.

The other participant is just me, and I hope I will count on the coordinator and the principal.

6. LITERATURE REVIEW

Writing for ESL students is not an easy matter, mainly when the students’ English competence is not very well developed. On the other hand, there is reading, which carries out a big problem in comprehension. Students are not used to “thinking” in English, they are not used to infering meanings from context and they forget vocabulary, structures or chunks which had supposedly been learned. As reading and writing are two hand-and-hand processes, it makes even more difficult the writing process. However, since the human being has the competence to think, there will be a possibility to write.

The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of previous findings about the writing process for ESL students, and mainly about the process writing approach. Although I am conscious that the most important principle of process pedagogy is that writing is the result of a very complex, highly individualized process, the need to investigate or innovate on this topic is significant, because the more time passes, the poorer ESL students’ production at school is. That is why I have posed one general and two specific questions about process writing approach:

What happens with students’ written production when they apply process writing strategies?

How can I guide students to write by following process writing strategies?

How are students’ reactions to process writing experiences?

Writing is something I have always felt excited about. Hence, I have been trying with a personal project during the last three years. This experience has been both, a little successful with respect to results, and a little unsuccessful with respect to the process. I mean, it has sometimes been exhausting, and many times I have found myself paraphrasing what the students want to pose in order to get coherence in their productions. I will briefly comment about this empirical try.

Many times, the process towards writing starts by reading, because as Frías (1996:7) suggests, “reading and writing are creative and interactive processes”.

That is what I did, so students started to read (per groups) some short stories, i.e. “The Ugly Duckling”, “Cinderella”, and so on. I helped them with certain structures, vocabulary, and expressions. Once the text had been understood, I elicited from the learners paraphrases of the story. Later they started the process of writing summaries of these stories. I helped them with kind of controlled composition to write the main ideas. Finally, they were able to write acceptable summaries after having given feedback and corrected errors and were asked to edit them.

The next year I wanted them to create their own short story. First of all, we brainstormed for possible topics. Each student decided his/her own. Then they were asked to focus on characters, places, and so on. The creation part started, there were permanent drafts with their corresponding feedback. The results were good in some way as I previously indicated, but I think I made many mistakes during the process. I looked anxiously for good productions, but I overlooked the process. Now I would like to try a different approach, the process one, to improve process as well as results.

Santoyo and Morales (Profile, 2000) also connected written production to their project on reading. They stated relevant aspects to count on in the process such as: teamwork, motivation, vocabulary and the fact of writing ideas before speaking. Their project is a proof that listening, speaking, reading and writing must work in an integrated way. They got interesting results in interaction, motivation and oral and written production from reading.

I found some other interesting proposals such as Ortega and Rodriguez’s one (Profile, 2000) in “Improvement of writing proficiency through creation ofhomogeneous groups in the classroom”, where they state that there is a lot of theory about writing skills, but these do not bear in mind the learners’ likes, interests, problems, age, attitude, etc., and I agree with them. It was interesting to create different working groups to establish the kind of work that functions better. However, it is noticeable that all the activities carried out based on a controlled writing situation provided good results, while freer compositions did not.

Silva, (2003:28) presents a transition of ESL writing throughout the time in his article ESL Writing: Past, Present, and Future. He focuses on the four most influential approaches: controlled composition, current-traditional rhetoric, the process approach, and English for academic purposes. In his article he refers to the process approach as a “non-linear exploratory and generative process whereby writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning” according to Zamel (1983, p.165).

Precisely this research is based on this approach: the process-oriented one. White and Arndt (1991) propose a model for working with writing (see fig. 2), where we can see it is a certainly not linear but cyclical process, and offers a great variety of

activities for each of the stages proposed. Below There is a brief explanation about each of this framework stages.

Fig. 2

The focusing stage has to do with the purpose for writing, the real reasons for writing. Structuring deals with the organization of ideas in an acceptable way for the reader. Drafting shows the transition from writer-based into reader-based text, because multiple drafts are produced and each one has feedback from the teacher or from peers. Re-viewing means standing back from the text and looking at it with fresh eyes and ask oneself: Is it right? . Evaluation is given on the process to assist students permanently and not merely at the end.

To summarize, I will mention some of the advantages offered by this approach :

It focuses on the process (not on the final product) It is reader-based (not writer-based) It counts with a real audience It offers a variety of techniques The teacher plays the role of guide, facilitator, reader The student’s role is the one of sharing and collaborating Grammar is a tool (a means, not an end) Meaning is essential (not form) It is a creative process Evaluation and feedback are given permanently (not only at the end)

Structuring Re-viewing Focusing

Drafting

Generating Ideas

Evaluating

Some of the literature found deals with the process approach itself. Now I will report some findings about works based on it.

As the state of art at my work place is based on the communicative approach, I will mention Calvache (HOW, 2003), who explains important aspects of the communicative approach, the task-based approach and the development of competence in foreign languages. I liked Calvache’s article and I agree with the point of view that the learner is the center of the process, so, for any educational action we must bear in mind his/her previous knowledge, his/her daily struggle, his/her needs and interests, his/her abilities and his/her attitudes, which are aspects to take advantage from.

Task-Based Instruction (TBI) has also a lot to do with the development of my project, since my work will be focused on tasks, where learners will interact and cooperate continuously to learn by doing.

I found a reflection and a proposal to L2 writing from Ortiz (HOW, 2003), where she demonstrates that questions can be used in writing activities to generate ideas. The topic and the kind of texts will depend on the students’ age, interests and level. She probably based her innovation on White and Arndt’s (1991) suggestion in order to focus on the concept of “shared knowledge” between reader and writer. She asked questions related to friends, families, relative, teachers, etc. in order to generate short texts about these specific topics. I think her proposal is interesting but I would like to go further than merely writing as a responses product.

Holmes, (2004) in his article “The use of a process-oriented approach to facilitate the planning and production stages of writing for adult students of English as a Foreign or Second Language” identifies some features of this approach and provides some suggestions to develop activities in order to humanize and make a more positive and effective experience from writing. He also involves White and Arndt’s (1991, p5) remark that “activities include pair and group work, not to mention discussion and collaboration, so that the writing class becomes, in a very genuine sense, a communicative experience in which much more than skill in writing is practiced and developed.”

Myers, (2004) from Texas University in her work “Teaching Writing as a Process and Teaching Sentence-Level Syntax: Reformulation as ESL Composition Feedback”, describes the procedures for using reformulation as composition feedback, aimed at improving sentence level grammar. I understand reformulation as one of the alternatives for correcting errors in a more human way. It seems to me an interesting work, but I am not sure it would work with my students, since they are not the same age, are lower-level and are not equally mature.

We can find lots of information about the writing process and specifically the process writing approach. I have found different aspects which I think would work according to the characteristics of my students and there are some others that would work with higher-level students or with students from a different culture. I have found that process writing offers a positive, motivating and collaborative atmosphere for students to write. It focuses on reader-based texts instead of writer-based texts. Besides, this approach gives extreme importance to the learners’ needs, interests, problems, age, motivation, and so on, which makes the student the center of the process. It requires real or authentic context and real readers.

I have learned a lot from all the articles and texts mentioned. I think all researches and innovations are important and we can take advantage of several aspects form each one.

7. MODE

This action-research and innovation project will be conducted using the following stages:

- Identification and formulation of the problem- Planning- Data collection- Analysis and Reflection- Hypothesis and Speculation- Intervention- Observation- Writing- Presentation

At the beginning, the students will receive an introduction about this project development. They will be asked to take active part and a consent form will be sent to their parents. (see annex 1)

Some strategies to guide the students to write will be systematically applied, beginning by the ones White and Arndt (1991) suggest to generate ideas such as brainstorming, question-based, using pictures and cartoons, etc. The process willbe cycling among structuring, drafting, focusing, re-viewing and evaluating continuously.

Data will be collected from collection of drafts and final products, and surveys. The teacher will play the role of observer and facilitator.

8. CHRONOGRAM

STAGE MONTHIdentification and formulation of the problem June/JulyPlanning August/Sept.Data Collection Sept./Oct./Nov.Analysis Oct./Nov.Hypothesis/Speculation NovemberIntervention NovemberObservation Oct./Nov.Writing July-Dec.Presentation December

9. RESOURCES

For the implementation of the project I will need documents on process writing approach, paper, handouts, pictures, realia, readings, computers, printer, tape recorder, video beam.I will be the direct responsible for each stage of the project.

10. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

In order to write about the first findings, let us recall the main and related questions that brought me to this research.

What happens with students’ written production when they apply process writing strategies?

How can I guide students to write by following process writing strategies?

How are students’ reactions to process writing experiences?

Before beginning to collect data, the students from 901 grade were told about the project and were asked to participate in a volunteering manner. Everybody agreed and liked the idea, and consent forms (see annex 1) were given to ten students who decided to be part of the sample. Next class they should bring them back with the corresponding information and signatures. From these 10 students I decided upon selecting five of them to be the sample, I chose those who rarely miss class and who attend suggestions and recommendations with great interest. Their names and ages are Ivan , (15), Fernando, (15), Mark (fictitious name), (14), Liliana, (16), and Darwin, (14).

Data began to be collected in September in the classroom of 901 grade. To start with the process of generation of ideas, I applied an unguided technique, in order to help students to generate ideas and observe their reactions towards these activities from process oriented approach. I recorded field notes in a chart. See table 1

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Sept.1/04 Does brainstorming help to generate ideas?

I modeled a brainstorming activity. I wrote the word “love”, (on purpose of the month), in the middle of the board and asked the students to give related ideas. The board finished full of ideas. Most of them were given in L1 but I wrote them in English and made emphasis on them.

Students understood the idea of brainstorming.They showed interest and participated a lot, making jokes among them, laughing and enjoying.Some of them didn’t talk, (Liliana and Darwin), so they just listened to the others and observed. The others, Fernando, Mark and Ivan gave ideas to the other members of the group, but most of them were in Spanish, in spite of that they know a lot of vocabulary related to this main topic.

Table 1

Another brainstorming activity began to be carried out. (See table 2)

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Sept.1/04 What topics do teenagers like reading the most?

I distributed slips of paper (one per student). I explained the development of a “snow-ball” activity, proceeding from individual pairgroupclass with an accumulation of ideas at each stage.They spent 2 min. silently writing down ideas related to the question given. Then they worked in pairs (2 min.) sharing and completing the list, and finally in groups. I took advantage of cooperative learning. They had to prepare a poster giving a name to the group, listing the most important five topics on which they agreed, helping each other to express ideas in English, and appointing a speaker, who would present briefly the information.

Some students were very lazy and waited for others do the work.Most of students didn’t show interest about not making mistakes. They simply didn’t worry about it.Time allotted for group work was not enough.Posters were well decorated in general.Presentations were O.K.. However some students didn’t pay attention to the speakers.Groups presented very similar ideas with respect to their topics of interest. Next class the same groups were asked to produce charts on the topic of their preference using “El Tiempo” newspaper. They should read about a topic and generate a text on their own.

Table 2

Notes:

Some productions were fantastic. Some others were just copy of parts of the news. A lot of creativity was demonstrated. The students with the best handwriting was chosen to do the final product. Others were chosen to draw. They used several materials, felt-tip pens of several colors, silhouette paper, etc. I reviewed their compositions before doing the final charts, since they were to stick on the principal hall at school. (see photograph of sample # 1)

Some other activities for generation of ideas were worked with students. See tables 3, 4 and 5.

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Sept.8/04 Does a sequence of pictures help the students to generate ideas?

I modeled an activity of using a picture sequence for a narrative text. I organized the class into groups of five and issued a different picture from the sequence to each group. Each group should generate a few sentences which told the story. Then a speaker from each group should display their picture and give their ideas. When all groups had presented theirs, I asked the other students to suggest an order in which the pictures should go so as to make a story. Then the speakers read their corresponding ideas in order and a story was created. A model was written on the board.Then each student was given a sequence of pictures for them to create a narrative story.

Students’ motivation raised when I showed them the pictures. Everybody raised their hands and wanted to participate.They showed great interest and gave good ideas.They were eager to see what was going to happen next.When we identified a possible coherent order for the sequence they were still happy.Things seemed to turn bored when I began to write on the board a possible narrative text.Some students yawned, others looked at different parts, the enchantment had disappeared.When they were given the papers individually, they again showed interest for finding the logical or possible sequence, but at the moment of writing, again things changed. They realized they needed new vocabulary but most of them do not have a dictionary.It was difficult for them to create a text. They intended to write simple ideas describing what happened in each picture. They had tot give coherence and connect ideas properly.

Table 3

Notes: the principal and most common errors in writing were: bad use of verb forms (past, past participles), ex: … getsed, …finded, omission of subjects, ex: …but had …, bad use of prepositions ( or sometimes two prepositions followed, ex: … and but….), bad use of past ideas in negative form, ex: .. .he not had coins…. (See sample # 2)I decided upon giving the following codes for feedback on their first compositions:

gr: grammarsp: spellingw.o: word order : omissionw.w: wrong wordX: overw.e: wrong expressiont.r: tense review

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Sept. 13/04

How does un unscrambled sequence of pictures help the students to generate ideas?

A sequence of Mafalda’s story was given to students. They had to create a narrative text following the sequence.

Some students didn’t understand the story. Probably they had never read Mafalda before. Anyhow, they managed to create their own based on their perception. They needed to ask for specific vocabulary according to what the pictures showed. They showed interest. Pictures liked a lot and some asked for color them. The students wrote good compositions from the sample. In my opinion, these compositions were much better than the previous ones. (see sample # 3)

Table 4

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Oct.20/04

How can a comic strip help students to compose dialogues?

Students were given a comic strip (Mafalda’s again), with blank speech bubbles to fill in.

More creativity and imagination is needed. The comic strip does not show a very clear situation. However, Ivan and Darwin fell on the spot of the matter. They ended the story making Felipe, the character, feel frustrated. Probably it was their perception according to Felipe’s face expression. The students’ productions in general were not excellent. However several ideas were generated and pictures helped a lot.

Again, too many grammar and coherence mistakes. (see sample # 4)

Table 5

I decided to stop the activities related to generation of ideas and give place to the focusing stage. An only activity was carried out to make the students notice that writers must have a clear purpose for writing what they do. In order to detect the writer’s reasons for writing a pool of suitable newspapers letters (in Spanish) and task sheets were given to them. (see table 6)

DATE ISSUE/QUESTION

ACTION REFLECTION/COMMENTS

Oct.27/04

How can I make the students realize about thereasons for writing?

The class had to suggest reasons of why people write letters to newspapers. The results were: to congratulate, thank, complain, oppose, advise, etc. Then they had to look at the pool of letters given and evaluate how well the ideas and language chosen by the writers served their purpose. They had to complete the task sheet given. I wrote on the board some ideas related to attitudes and language devices and explained them a little bit.Then they had to write a letter to the principal of the school who had taken the decision of eliminating the right to receive the snack offered by the ICBF because some students had been frittering it away.

Letters were a good example to understand the writers’ purpose. When the students received the news of elimination of the snacks, they reacted with different attitudes and immediately started writing their letters. In a very respectful way they showed their disapproval and argued the reasons for which they should continue receiving the snacks. They complained for the decision and suggested the principal to take a different one.(see sample 5)

Table 6

INTERPRETATIONS:

According to White and Arndt’s model of writing (1991), based on process-writing approach, generation of ideas is a clearly crucial part of the writing process (see figure 2)

Since getting started is the most difficult part of any process, this research is just a starting point of the complex process of writing. Most of the activities here presented have to do with generation of ideas. Some of them are guided and some others are not. There is one more activity which has to do with the focusing stage.

Brainstorming, (an unguided technique), first modeled by the teacher, and then by the students, was useful to produce many individual ideas or words related to a specific topic quickly. Later on they were enlarged through cooperative work as I explained in the field notes. Students showed a positive attitude towards these activities. They had fun and showed great creativity. However, English language was not used at all and there was difficulty for developing ideas. When students perceive that the task is getting complicated, most of them give up and start getting bored, frustrated or unable. They do not make much effort.

On the other hand, the other activities, I mean, using picture sequences and cartoons, fostered personal expression since each student perceived and interpreted these visual aids differently. They were a great stimulus for vocabulary development.

Learners liked the activities where they did not have to write so much, which were creative and where they could express their feelings and emotions without having to write very much. They discovered ideas, but it was not easy to develop them. If they were not pressed, they did not make any effort, or simply evaded doing things.

Some activities for generation of ideas provided more successful results than others. It is necessary to implement the ones where students have to exercise their creativity and imagination since it is quite difficult for them although they are interested. They are used to following patterns and it is hard for them to go beyond. In general they showed great interest and better outcomes with pictures than with words.

Errors in grammar, syntax and coherence are frequently presented, but I will not try to focus on them but in the process itself. It is hard for me because I am always trying to correct mistakes at first sight. I am also trying to change my mind.

With respect to the focusing activity I could notice that the students really understood that every body writes with a specific purpose. With the pool of letters taken from “El Tiempo” newspaper they could observe the different purposes, the different writers’ attitude, and the different language devices the writer uses to make their letters really effective.

FINDINGS

With these aspects mentioned, I can establish the following categories for this research:

CATEGORIES DESCRIPTIONPictures help more than words For ideas generation several activities were

posed. From these ones, students showed much more interest, creativity and discovering of ideas when the starting point was a picture or sequences of pictures, or cartoons, than when the starting point was just words.

The simpler the task, the better written outcomes

Students’ attention time is very short. If After 15 minutes of having started an activity they haven’t finished, they get tired, bored, frustrated and feel unable. So, tasks must be short, clear and simple, according to their proficiency. So the students will work in a positive manner, they will feel confident and encouraged to write their own ideas.

Letters: a good resort to complain

When learners receive news about decisions that can harm their life conditions, they immediately react. Letters help them to express their disagreement, protest, complain, etc. and they know that most of letters are effective if language is used properly. It was a good device to make the students understand what focusing means.

Teacher’s role The teacher must be essentially a model and a facilitator. A model because students need examples to do anything for the first time, it is the teacher who must guide them with clear instructions, and a facilitator because students will need help either with vocabulary or any other aspect of organizational competence (cohesion, syntax, coherence, etc).

CONCLUSIONS

This is a study related to how English teachers can help or guide our students to write or improve their compositions in this foreign language. As I have said, writing is the most neglected of the skills and I have wanted to return to its practice. So I have planned the use of different strategies and activities that White and Arndt pose in their work about the process-writing approach.

For this study I identified one main pedagogical question and two more related ones which had to do with the way I could guide my students to improve their written compositions and what their reaction to process-writing approach activities was. In spite of the short time I had to implement this study I managed to prove two of White and Arndt’s proposed stages: generation and focusing.

With both of these stages and in the different activities carried out I could realize that it is not really very difficult to guide the learners towards a good output. For generation I applied several activities where I could notice that the best products were those in which pictures were involved to help the students generate ideas. Students began to get bored or discouraged when the activities turned too long, or when they had to write a lot. So the activities for these types of groups should be short, visually aided and clear. For the focusing stage, it was important to make the students realize that nobody writes without a specific purpose or for a specific audience. With the use of letters from a newspaper they understood that the writer’s attitude and the different kind of language he/she uses is very related to his/her purpose. The teacher’s role is also an important cue. We must be guides and facilitators instead of judges or linguistic elements correctors. These type of corrections should be left for subsequent studies.

In summary, everything is a matter of creativity and presentation of motivating activities in a step-by-step pace. The student’s reactions in general were quite positive. They liked the activities and did their best even giving ideas in Spanish. Motivation was clear in some activities in particular. I observed a raise of interest for writing, and the idea of being working for a research helped a lot.

I think this study was very important for me because I learned a lot of process-writing approach, I understood the importance of being systematic for a research and it has created a great expectation for future research. I plan to go ahead and take the best advantage of what I learned.

PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Working with White and Arndt’s proposal implies that the students are high achievers and that they have a good competence in the English language. However, the group of students of this study are neither high achievers nor have a good English competence. Nevertheless things resulted to be a positive experience and this proposal can also function with low achievers. Obviously it would be nicer and better if things were different.

This study helped to create anxiety of learning in the students, most of them wished to be able to deal with a lot of vocabulary, structures and coherent elements. We noticed how low the achievements has been so far, but unfortunately there are not one’s own circumstances that have produced these results.

In order to do this kind of work, it is necessary to count on first of all the will. Once the problem or the situation has been identified, it is important to start learning from the literature about this topic. It is necessary to motivate the students with nice activities and have copies of the different activities available.

It is important that teachers do not feel discouraged or afraid of working with writing since there are really good alternatives to work with. What is more, there is a lot of information about this process-writing approach which I suggest since activities are clear, motivating and overall effective.

LIMITATIONS:

I had some difficulties specially with material, because of little support from the principal. Another important difficulty was the low level of achievement of the students. I counted on very short time to apply all the activities I would have liked to. Data analysis is not an easy matter to work with, so I had some problems to understand how I could analyze them.

POSSIBLE FUTURE ACTIONS OR RESEARCH

It would be nice to be able to cover all White and Arndt’s proposal stages covered in a school year. I mean, not only generation or focusing but reviewing, structuring, drafting and evaluating.

An interesting aspect would be digging into the results of this proposal with high achievers and with other social condition students.

Another important aspect to study in the future would be the way of correcting and/or evaluating the students’ written compositions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frías, M. (1996). Procesos Creativos para la Construcción de Textos. Cooperativa Editorial Magisterio: Colombia

Furneaux, C. (1998). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Process writing. Oxford

Holmes, N. (2004). The use of a process-oriented approach to facilitate the planning and production stages of writing for adult students of English as a Foreign or Second Language. Retrieved from:http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining//processw2_nicola.htm on August 2, 2004

Myers, S. (2004). Teaching Writing as a Process and Teaching Sentence-Level Syntax: Reformulation as ESL Composition Feedback. Texas Tech University

Nunan, D. (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Ortega, L. and Rodríguez V, (2000) Improvement of writing proficiency through creation of homogeneous groups in the classroom. Profile Journal, 1, 48-51

Ortiz, R.. (2003). Question-Based writing Process: A reflection and a proposal to L2 writing. HOW 10, 35-43

Santoyo, B. and Morales L. (2000). Reading: a motivating and interactive process. Profile Journal 1, 59-60

Silva, T, Ph. D. (2003). ESL Writing: Past, Present, and Future. HOW, 10, 28-39

The Process Approach to Teaching Writing (2004). Retrieved from:http://www.askjeeves.com, on August 8, 2004

White, R. and Arndt, V. (1991) Process Writing. Longman: London and New York