In the methodology we distinguish between writing and written speech. Writing is the possession of the graphic and spelling systems of a language. The ability to correctly write letters connect them into words (calligraphy); the ability to correctly write words and word combinations (spelling). Written speech is the ability to express your thoughts in writing. The ability to write what students are able to say in the language. However, these concepts are often not opposed in the domestic and English-language methodological literature. The term «writing” may include letter as such and written language.
The work on writing and written speech has a positive effect on the mastery of the types of speech activity, it has a linguistic, educational and educational value. Consider the linguistic value of this type of speech activity:
a) exercises in the sound- writing ratio help to quickly master the technique of reading; b) contribute to better consolidation of vocabulary and grammatical material, since all four analyzers simultaneously work — visual, auditory (the student relates the sign to the sound), motor speech, motor (the hand writes); c) help to identify and correct errors; d) are an effective means of controlling knowledge and skills.
Educational value:
a) broadens the philological outlook; b) there is an acquaintance with the new letters of the Latin alphabet.
Educational value:
a) develops a culture of work; b) attention; c) hard work; d) accuracy.
Learning Goals
The development of writing skills to express one's thoughts is put forward as the final requirement in the field of teaching writing.
Upon completion of the basic course, students should be able to also within the most typical communication situations:
– make extracts from the text;
– make and write a plan of the text read or heard;
– write a short greeting, express a wish;
– fill in the form in writing (indicate the name, surname, gender, age, citizenship, address, etc.);
– write a personal letter (ask the addressee about his life, children, tell the same thing about yourself, express gratitude, using material from one or several learned topics).
Graduates of schools, lyceums of a linguistic profile should be able to use the letter in the field of their chosen professional and personal interests with a significant variety of situations of official and unofficial nature, a high degree of complexity and a large amount of text produced in writing.
The basic course implies mastering written language at the “level of survival,” that is, the achievement of elementary communicative competence.
For a long time, secondary education was attached to the teaching of writing in secondary school. It acted, rather, as a means of teaching other types of speech activity. The only exceptions were language universities and schools with in-depth study of a foreign language, where writing was considered as the goal of study.
However, if we turn to the data of psychology, then involuntarily we come up against the position of the inseparable interaction of analyzers of cerebral cortex, which determines the relationship of various types of speech activity. Then it turns out that the lag of one speech unit inhibits the development of other species. So, students of non-linguistic universities could not, at the beginning of their studies at the university, write down words, draw up plans for working on text, etc. This hampered the formation of skills in speaking and reading (the same thing was when listening). Teacher practitioners have noticed that learning vocabulary is strongest with the simultaneous listening of a word, writing it on a blackboard and pronouncing it.
Thus, the enhancement of the role of writing proceeded both from below — from the mass school, and from above — from science. Currently, attitudes toward writing and teaching students to express their thoughts in writing have drastically changed. Writing as a goal of learning is present in programs for all types of educational institutions, at all stages of learning a foreign language, since the main didactic rule is interrelated and parallel learning of all types of speech activity with a differentiated approach to each of them, t. e. all analyzers should be involved, educational material should be “passed through” in the lesson through all types of speech activity, so we are talking about such a strategy of learning a foreign language, when one type of speech activity assimilated by other types of speech activity.
What do we mean by the terms «writing” and «written speech”? Writing is a broader concept and includes graphics (system of signs-grapheme); spelling (spelling); entry — written fixation of language units.
Written speech — written fixation of an oral utterance — to solve a specific communication problem.
In the practice of teaching, writing means technology (procedural aspect), and written speech means complex creative activity aimed at expressing thoughts in writing.
The long-standing rejection of writing as a learning goal is largely due to the difficulties of learning to write.
We list these difficulties: the discrepancy between the sound and graphic plan of speech; a written statement is more specific, complete, more strict (for example, the inability to intonate one’s speech requires careful selection of syntactic means); the presence of graphic-orthographic features in a foreign language (unreadable letters, words, homophones); mastering written language implies that a student has a certain level of sociocultural competence.
Writing is a complex type of speech activity; in teaching writing, we have in mind the following aspects:
1) work on writing technique (i.e. forming calligraphic, graphic, and spelling skills);
2) the development of skills to transmit semantic information with the help of the graphic code of the language being studied, that is, a written speech.
Formation of skills of calligraphy is associated with the correct inscription of letters and legible writing. Graphic skills are due to students mastering a set of basic graphic properties of the language being studied, letters, diacritical marks (a sign with a letter indicating that it should be read differently than without this sign, for example: [ё] Uzbek with English. At the heart of spelling skills is a system of ways of writing words, adopted in a particular language. Difficulties associated with mastering these skills are due to the fact that in most cases the alphabets of the native and foreign languages do not match. Packages should also be taken into account.
Writing is by its nature secondary, but at the same time it is an independent material form of the language. Developing its own features, it relied on the same semasiological categories of time, space, modality, subject, object, predicate, cause-effect relationships, etc., which are inherent in speech, but at the same time other means appeared and developed. Ways of expressing these categories, which could not but affect their semantics (For example, how do we express expression in writing? Select it with a font or an exclamation mark.)
From a psychological point of view, thanks to the unification of the rumors of internal speech and visual-motor images in a letter, the complex assimilation of knowledge and skills, i.e., written language, is more complex in structure, since it includes oral speech.
References:
- Methods of teaching English in grades 1–4: a manual for teachers and students of pedagogical universities / G. V. Rogova, I. N. Vereshchagina, N. V. Yazykova. — 4th ed., — M.: Enlightenment, 2008. — Ch. 7.5.
- Milrud R. P. Methods of teaching foreign language writing / R. P. Milrud // Inostr. lang at school. — 1997. — № 2. — p. 5–11.
