ONE-DAY CONFERENCE ON 'WRITING'
FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
Saturday, November 15th, saw the
celebration of TESOL-SPAIN's latest
regional event, a one-day
conference on writing skills.
Organised by Bego Mintegui, the
regional coordinator for Euskadi,
the event offered participants the
opportunity to reflect on this
often neglected area of English
language teaching. In four one-hour
workshop sessions the speakers
explored distinct areas of the
teaching of writing skills, their
talks being entitled:
"Responding to students' written
work: what are the options?" (Annie
MacDonald)
"Writing is communication too!"
(Mark Hancock)
"Writing: taking the reader into
account." (Robin Walker)
"Teaching writing beyond accuracy."
(Anne McCabe)
The broad thrust of all four
sessions was that of how to help
learners with their writing by
taking this skill away from a focus
on correct language, and on towards
a focus on writing as an act of
communication.
Bego Mintegui's organisation of
the event was excellent: the venue
was superb, both in terms of size
and location, and our sincere
thanks go to the Kutxa for their
generous support in this respect.
Support also came from three ELT
publishers, Heinemann,
Longman-Pearson and Oxford
University Press España, and
obviously TESOL-SPAIN is very
grateful for the varied and
invaluable help each publisher
provided.
The attendance left all who had
experience in setting up such
events full of admiration for what
Bego had achieved. Over 100 people
attended the conference, and they
were all still there at the end.
The atmosphere was very good, and
the feedback suggests that the
participants had found the day
stimulating and worthwhile. The
speakers also admitted to feeling
happy with the way their talks
covered different aspects of
writing, yet overlapped in useful,
meaningful ways.
Overall, then, it is safe to
qualify the San Sebastian
conference as entirely positive,
and Bego Mintegui is to be warmly
congratulated for her efforts, the
speakers for their talks, and,
above all, the participants for
their time, attention and
contributions.
Robin Walker - Regional Officer
A Full House in
Donostia-San Sebastián
THE SPEAKERS
Annie
McDonald
Annie has been teaching EFL
since 1985 and has taught
in Turkey, Brazil and
Spain. She holds an MSc in
Teaching English from Aston
University and is co-author
of
Pen Pictures
(OUP, 1999), a three-level
writing skills book for
young learners. She
currently teaches English
for Journalism at
Universidad San Pablo-CEU
Madrid, and is the former
president of TESOL-SPAIN.
Mark
Hancock
Mark has been involved in
TEFL for 17 years, in
Sudan, Turkey, Brazil and
Spain. He holds an MSc in
Teaching English from Aston
University. He has written
Pronunciation Games
(CUP; 1995),
Singing Grammar
(CUP; 1998),
English Pronunciation in
Use
(CUP; forthcoming) and
co-written
Pen Pictures
(OUP; 1999) and ESO course
book
New Ways to Go
(CUP 2002)
Robin
Walker
Robin
has been teaching English
in Spain since 1981 and
currently works at the
Escuela Universitaria de
Turismo de Asturias. He
has been involved in
teacher education since
1983, collaborating with
the state teacher education
centres, Oviedo University
and OUP España. His
specialist interests are
pronunciation, ESP and
teacher education. He is
currently the Regional
Officer of TESOL-SPAIN.
Anne
McCabe
Anne
McCabe is Director of the
English as a Second
Language Program at Saint
Louis University’s Madrid
Campus, where she teaches
English language,
translation, writing, and
linguistics. She has a
Ph.D. in Language Studies
from Aston University,
U.K., and has published a
number of articles on
teaching writing and on
research into writing.
Anne is also a former
president of TESOL-SPAIN.
THE PROGRAMME
Annie McDonald
9.30-10.30
“Responding to Students’
Written Work: What are the
options?”
Providing feedback is one
of the most commonly
conceived functions of a
teacher, yet, according to
Nunan (1991), the ultimate
effect of feedback is often
doubtful. To what extent is
this true for written
work? In this talk we will
explore different
correction procedures and
examine their effectiveness
in a variety of writing
contexts.
Mark
Hancock
10.30-11.30
“Writing
is communication too!”
Too often, we treat writing
as mere grammar practice.
But writing is
communication too. In this
workshop, we will look at
classroom tasks which focus
on meaning and content in
writing, and not just form.
Lot’s of imaginative and
creative ideas to take
away!
11:30-12:00 Break
Robin Walker
12.00-13.00
"Writing: taking the reader
into account."
Some approaches to teaching
writing skills in English
concentrate very much on
the writing process without
necessarily helping the
learner to see the need to
think about the reader(s).
But if we don't try to
answer two fundamental
questions before we put pen
to paper, writing can be
both difficult and
ineffective. This session
will look at work from my
own students to help us to
explore these questions.
Anne
McCabe
13:00-14.00
“Teaching writing beyond
accuracy”
Teaching writing often
seems to mean taking in
written work from students
and correcting the
grammatical errors. In this
workshop, we will look at
activities which focus on
writing in terms of
pragmatic and textual
competence, as well as on
creativity, with an aim to
free teachers and learners
to see writing as
communicative interaction,
and to allow for more of a
focus on fluency in
writing.
THE COST
TESOL MEMBERS:
NON-MEMBERS:
*pre-registration must
be received before November
5th.
THE VENUE:
Sala Arrasate - Kutxa
C/ Arrasate, 12
20005 Donostia-san
sebastian
|
|
