Expressive writing for adolescents in the efl classroom: a didactic proposal

Abstract

Although Communicative Language Teaching emerged in the 1960s, this approach has not fully materialised in the English as a Foreign Language classroom where, unfortunately, both teaching and textbooks are still too grammar-centred and testdriven. The prevalence of this teach-to-test approach does affect the way writing is taught in our country. Many EFL teachers see themselves between a rock and a hard place when trying to follow the established curriculum in the coursebook and, at the same time, attempting to cater for their students’ real communicative needs in a globalized world. Real-life tasks demand an integration of the main skills but, more often than not, writing is taught in isolation from the other language abilities and, remarkably, follows linear and fixed steps more inspired by the grammar translation method than by communicative language principles. The study of current writing pedagogies appears mandatory if we want to reverse this situation. The present master thesis dissertation takes as a point of departure a review of product, process and genre-based approaches in order to adopt expressive writing as a framework suitable to develop the writing skill. In that vein, a didactic proposal is designed with the twofold aim of teaching new writing competences and developing new writing identities in Higher Secondary Education students. Guidelines provided by scholars such as Small Roseboro (2019), Burns & Siegel (2018) or Rosa Manchón (2011, 2014), to name but a few, were adopted and adapted to the needs and interests of a group of Baccalaureate learners. Every writing lesson presented here adopts a strategic approach to writing through meaningful and motivating activities, enhanced by the inclusion of new technologies in the teaching-learning process. These activities intend to make writing the major goal of the writing lessons instead of using it as a mere excuse to practise more grammar or to memorise more vocabulary.