Writing tasks - a rough guide

• Approaching writing as a process accomplished in stages
• Scrutinizing work more critically
• Revising work to make it intelligible by adding, removing, substituting, and/or recombining material
• Keeping a portfolio of work to chart progress
• Raising awareness of different types of written texts with different purposes

• Using writing skills to accomplish designated work related tasks
• Writing texts of varying lengths up to two paragraphs
• Applying the grammar relevant to job-related communicative needs
• Using grammar to perform various real word tasks
• Learning that grammar involves choice
• Using grammar effectively to make meaning clearer
• Raising awareness of the connection between grammar and lexis
• Developing receptive and productive skills through improved grammar

• Presenting the target structure inductively or deductively
• Noticing-activities that make the grammar significant to the trainee

• Exposure to contextualised uses of target structures in dialogues or written texts
• Using learner generated examples of the target structure
• Ensuring use of target structure in other activities and contexts
• Connecting target structure forms to meaningful contexts such as aspects of register and distance [setting, topic, relationships, attitudes] that affect grammatical choices

• Practising target structures using communicative activities
• Pairwork using information gap activities
• Pairwork using activities which oblige using target structures

• Using grammar choices to solve communication problems

• Using context gaps [problems to solve, decisions to make, incomplete tasks to complete] with lexis needing to be grammaticised
• Establishing proceduralisation by referring grammar to various uses in spoken or written routines

• Analysing task activities and reporting results
• Restructuring activities to re-notice the target structure [giving a particular situation and jumbled sentences from the context to grammaticise with the target structure]

• Correcting errors in the production of target structures elicited in the task phase, especially comparing production with target structures to notice gaps
• Limited production of the target structure with allowance for inaccuracy
• Practicing fluency with target structures rather than accuracy activities [which continue during follow up sessions]

• Sentence skills: simple, compound, complex sentences
• Emphasizing use of subordination to link ideas
• Creating appropriate text and knowledge of its features
• Paragraphing based on discourse organization of authentic texts to link ideas in parallel progression, sequential progression, or extended parallel progression
• Using appropriate vocabulary in creating text [formulaic language, lexical phrases for organizing the text, register]
• Making writing explicit and being aware of the way it differs from spoken text [discourse markers, premodified noun phrases, complete sentences and condensed sentences]

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