Motivation for Writing

Therefore, teachers have a very crucial role in motivating learners to read and write. Some of the observations I have had over these years of teaching and learning towards motivating learners to write can be:

a) Helping the learners understand the genre, need, purpose and people they are writing to and thereby making it related in some way to real-life language use

b) Creating opportunities for learners to express their views in whatever way possible (verbal or written)

c) Encouraging Pair work or Group work followed by the peer feedback alongside teacher’s feedback

d) Minimum possible correction of error at the beginning

e) Giving priority to the content and organization than the language forms and norms

f) Enriching the library with books on the traditions and trends of writing

g) Facilitating learners with Audio-visuals like movies, documentaries and encouraging them to respond to them in black and white.

h) Telling success stories to provide an impetus to writing

i) Providing other sense stimulants like sound, movie clips to listen to or watch

j) Prioritizing learner’s area of interest in writing topics or themes for creative writing

k) Forming and supervising Writers’ Club in the initiation of the learners

l) Organizing writing competitions and awarding the winners respectfully

m) Acknowledging and recognizing learners’ attempts tactfully

n) Recognizing and practicing formative assessment alongside the summative assessment

o) Giving timely feedback and reinforcement

p) Inviting good writers to give a talk program, if possible

q) Encouraging Project-Based Learning (PBL)

r) Entrusting learners with respectable tasks in writing like journal, magazines, periodicals, etc.

s) Providing room for learners to publish their creative work of art both in and out of the school publications.

    2.  Practice

Undoubtedly, perfect practice makes a man perfect in his tasks. Practically speaking very few get motivated to writing, if it was not so almost everyone who has once been to a university or a school would be a writer today. Many things are done as rituals but the goal still remains away and if we truly say, not every child/learner can do this part of their onus. However, following tips and tricks may be instrumental for the interested learners and the facilitators.

a) Launching a writing class after each reading and listening activity

b) Providing a minimum of four to five free writing classes every month

c) Introducing and facilitating proper brainstorming techniques for ideas and information

d) Providing learners with ready worksheets and other stimulants

e) Reading beautiful pieces of literary work like poems and stories in a dramatic fashion and involving the learners themselves.

f) Giving opportunities to have a good audience to the writers

g) Avoiding correction of unintended aspects of language while writing is in progress

h)  Allowing learners to practice writing as home tasks occasionally

i) Abstaining from the comparison of learners’ write-ups but showing them as samples for further improvement

j) Providing access to the ICT and accepting online submission of learners’ materials as a break for a change

k) Establishing a writing club of the students, by the students and for the students

l) Creating family/school page or blog and encouraging the writing club members to contribute

m) Encouraging parents and guardians to engage their wards in writing and giving feedback

n) Encouraging learners to create greeting/best wishes cards and thank you notes of their own to present their teachers, friends, family, and relations

o) Organizing letter, essay, poem, story, book or film review writing competitions and other paper or case study presentations at regular intervals, not just once a year

p) Facilitating collaborative writing classes to make learners more interactive and engaged

q) Displaying students’ creation on a separate board like Writer’s Club

r) Publishing students’ write-ups in a school book of creativity as additional materials for learners and even teachers

s) Using students’ creative work of art as covers for school diary, notebooks, textbooks/reference book, calendar, etc., to be published by school

t) Encouraging learners to write to celebrities in various spheres of lifelike, companies CEOs, literature, sports, music, films, social service, etc.

u) Encouraging learners to write when they feel hurt, when they feel good when they are in problems when they want to tell the truth, and all that is true, and maintain a personal diary.

                          

     3.  Assessment

Assessment in general is part of the feedback that is given to the learner with the objective of informing and improving the existing performance of a learner. It is to measure a learner’s ability or the quality or success of a teaching-learning course. Assessment tells the learner how well or badly he or she has performed.

Oftentimes, we educators or teachers take both assessment and correction as synonymous to each other and thus forget to give feedback in correction. This deprives the learners of the knowledge of his or her strengths and weaknesses resulting in the loss of motivation and even the trust of their educator. Correction is not merely proofreading, editing, or pointing out mistakes or errors. It equally has to do with the mention of the good aspects of a learner’s performance.

In assessment, it is not productive to make the correction as it has to do with the objective of evaluating a learner’s partial or collective understanding of a certain material discussed or practiced over a period of time.

Broadly speaking, assessment can be divided into two categories: formative and summative assessments. How often do you check the understanding of a concept or learning item of your learners to make a decision as to whether or not you can further the course or a lesson? What if your learners have not learned what you have taught how do you check this?

Formative assessment in this situation comes instrumental to give both the learners and the educators the right opportunity to change the instructional guidelines. It used right there and then in the class effecting your instruction in the desired way for better results. It may slow the instruction but it will then pick up the pace soon. We, as educators, most of the times use a very vague parameter: “Students, did you understand this or that…? Are there any questions?” to check whether a learner has understood the material as expected, and the course is furthered if the response is “Yes” or if these questions are followed by a silence of three-four seconds. This typical test only widens the gap between the course and the learners than bridging to ultimately shock the educator when the big project, the summative test is taken. The real reasons for the crummy results are not the learners, but the inadequacy of formative assessments in course of the teaching-learning process and not discovering when and how certain information had a need for re-teaching and reviewing.

Summative assessment is the one given at the end of a course of instruction, and it measures or sums up how much a learner has learned from a prescribed course. Therefore, they are generally evaluative, rather than diagnostic. A summative test is usually a graded test, that is, it is marked according to a scale or set of grades or scores in most academic institutes. This is also a way to providing information to decision-makers, after the course or program is completed, on whether or not the program was successful. (Summative Evaluation) An assessment expert, Paul Black put it, “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment, but when the customer tastes the soup, that’s a summative assessment.”

Very typical examples of summative assessments are the standardized tests administered by the educational organizations in different mandatory and elective subjects offered by them under strict time frame like Semester test, Unit tests, Monthly tests, Trimester tests, Annual tests, etc. Even the (Diagnostic) tests like these ACT, SAT, GRE, TOEFL, TEFL, GMAT, etc. can be termed as Summative because these tests are administered or taken at the end of a certain training/class on a prescribed subject and within a certain time frame already fixed. 

 Before                                                                                                                                        continued...