WRITING ACTIVITIES

Objectives:

• To use the linguistic and strategic resources suitable to the given situation.
• To automatize the knowledge about the English language itself and the rules of its linguistic system to write in a correct, coherent and cohesive way in order to understand and produce written discourses.
• To develop learning strategies in order to use the English language in an autonomous way.
• To know the social and cultural features of the English language in order to understand and interpret better the different cultures that the English language accomplishes.
• To value the use of the English language in order to get access to other kinds of knowledge and cultures, recognizing the importance that the language has got as a tool of communication and international understanding, being aware of the similarities and differences among cultures.
• To understand different written texts and interpret them using adecuate comprehension strategies, identifying the essential elements of the text and understanding its function and layout. 
• To write well structured and clear texts with the adecuate style and register
• To enhance self-assessment strategies in the acquisition of the English language communicative competence, showing trust, responsibility and entrepreneurship in this process.

Contents:

Writing:

• Planning of a text using organization, articulation and cohesion mechanisms.
• Writing texts about an anglosaxon city in a clear way with adequate lexicon and grammar structures and the appropriate register (London, Edinburgh, Dublin , New York).
• Order of sentences and paragraphs in a logical way in order to make a coherent text using suitable linkers and connectors.
• Interest in producing clear and understandable written texts with a convenient structure, fulllfiling the different intentions and communicative needs.

 Linguistic contents:  

• Travel, tourism and civilization lexicon extension.
• Revision of grammar structures when writing the text.
• Improvement of pronunciation, intonation and pitch.
• Production and interpretation of different rhythms, intonation and pitches to understand a read text.
• Accuracy when writing in the target language. 

 Learning to learn:

•  Recognition of the different registers of the language: written and oral, formal and informal speech. 

• Autonomous use of different learning digital and bibliographical resources.
• Application of strategies to revise, widen and consolidate lexicon and grammar structures.
• Analysis and reflection on the use and meaning of different grammar structures by comparing and contrasting the peers' and your own's.
• Reflection and application of self-correction and self-assessment strategies to progress in the autonomous learning of the English language.
• Recognition of errors and mistakes as something necessary in their learning process.
• Interest to take profit of the learning chances inside and outside school using information and communication technologies.
• Value of trust, entrepreneurship and cooperation in the learning of the English language.

Socio-cultural aspects

• Social contact with peers showing respect towards other people’s opinions and attitudes.
• Knowledge and value of the most relevant cultural elements.
• Significant similarities and differences among costumes, behaviours, attitudes, values and beliefs among speakers of the English and Spanish language.
• Use of suitable registers according to the context, speakers and communicative purpose.
• Interest to establish communicative exchanges to know cultural information of English speaking countries.
• Value of the English language as a tool of communication and understanding among peoples which provides with the access to other cultures and that helps to enrich ourselves personally  
• Value of the English language as a means to access knowledge in students' future academic and professional lives.

Procedures:

All the class together, students remember the activity that was done the previous day by creating a mind map with the programme bubbl.us. One student writes all the words that are brainstormed and categorizes them including them in the mind map.

Once this warm up activity is done, the teacher hands out different word clouds with some key words of the different cities (London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York). In these wordclouds, the most important characteristics are gathered. Students are told to write an article about the city taking into account the appropriate layout for articles and using adecuate grammar structures. 

Later on, when the articles are written, they are handed in to the teacher and she distributes randomly the writings to all the students. Students must read the articles and guess what city the article is about.

Assessment:

Peer-assessment: after reading the writings of the peers and guessing which city is described, students must correct the possible mistakes of the written piece.

Teacher assessment: at the end of the session, the teacher collects all the writings and revise the corrections. If necessary, she will correct the mistakes that have not been pointed out by the students.  

ACTIVITIES:

WRITING SKILL

WARM UP ACTIVITY: students work all together remembering the keywords that were studied during the previous session. One volunteer student will use the teacher's computer in order to create a mind map. Bubbl.us programme can be used in order to create a clear and neat mind map. 

WRITING A REPORT:

 Students are given some word clouds with key words of the differente cities (London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York). The word clouds are different for each student though, obviously, some of the words are repeated. Students must create an article on that city using all the words that the word cloud contains except the name of the city. Apart from that, the grammar structures and layout of the writing must be appropriate and suitable for an article.

While doing this writing activity, the teacher will project in the screen the typical layout of an article. Thus, students from time to time can check if they are following the established guidelines.

GUESSING GAME:

When all the articles are written, the teacher collects them and hands them out to the students randomly. Students need to read the article and guess which city is being described. After that, they must correct the possible mistakes. When they are over, the teacher will take all the writings to assess them.