introduction
I have been teaching English as a foreign language in secondary schools in Tunisia for many years. Although I have always used stimulating strategies to encourage my students to write and have motivated them in various ways to produce good writing: letters, poems, stories, articles, quizzes …, I was well aware of their reluctance to write as an activity regularity and anxiety every time their papers were returned. It was evident that they preferred to do something more fun than a task that they considered difficult, exhausting and boring!
In discussing this topic with my classmates, I discovered that they faced the same problems with their students and some of them desperately acknowledged having resorted to neglecting and avoiding this activity in their English classes. They left it for the end of the session due to lack of time or they gave it as homework. Therefore, writing is neglected and ignored.
No wonder our students are bad at wriggling and getting bad grades! To remedy such an alarming situation, we need to readjust and update the techniques we have been using and question our personal attitude towards writing. It is hoped that the various changes introduced by information and communication technologies in the field of education will be of great help and offer a wide range of interactive tools to prevent the main problems of students and make writing a more interactive and enjoyable experience.
II- Writing and ICT
The more we use interactive ICT tools to teach writing, the more enthusiastic, positive, motivated, passionate and engaged we are. Consequently, we can pass this passion on to our students. Therefore, writing is no longer a passive, tiring, boring and frustrating task, but must be:
* Considered as a natural way to communicate.
* naturally linked to oral language and reading
* both an individual and a shared experience.
* an interactive experience.
* challenging and fun.
* promoted by ICT.
When students write to their peers in other countries, writing is no longer a simulated activity in the classroom, but a means of exchanging personal information, a way to inform and learn about other people’s schools, environments and cultures. The procedure is simple: students receive a letter and then write it. Communication through writing becomes as natural as communication through speech.
There are electronic dictionaries for all levels of students. Students can consult them at all stages of writing to check spelling, grammar, vocabulary …
They can also use forums, chat to communicate with other people through writing.
There are writing programs, such as Storybook Weaver and Writers Workshop, for promoting creative writing. These programs allow students to create text with the help of background images. Some of them read aloud the text that the students have created, while others give the students the opportunity to read their text and hear their own voice.
Creating web pages with FrontPage Editor, DreamWeaver, or any other web editor is a more advanced and rewarding way to motivate students to write and publish their work on the web.
Teachers have the possibility to assign many activities in which computer work is combined with non-computer work, for example, planning a tourist brochure by first discussing it in a group, writing the text in a word program, finding pictures of support to illustrate, letting others see the compose and provide comments before reviewing and editing the text and finally making a web page from it.
The possibilities are enormous and the imagination has no limits.
III- Writing activities that we can teach with ICT
There is a wide variety of ICT-based activities that we can choose from; they can be online or offline. As teachers, we are called to adapt them to the level of our students and to the context:
* Simple sentences
* Enriched sentences
* Descriptions after a reading activity.
* Letters / E-mails
* Postcards
* Articles
* Interviews
* Reports
* Advertisements
* End of stories
* Beginning of stories
* Stories
* Cartoon
* Poems
IV- Writing tools on the web
There are programs that help students create their own writing activities. Others generate phrases, poems, quotes, stories …
* Play with words, create interactive writing games. You can choose the plot, the setting, the character … Once you are done, you can print and email your writings: http://www.writingfix.com/
* Publication of student writings: poems, stories, journal writing … http://www.amphi.com/~pgreenle/EEI/studentpublish.html [http://www.tooter4kids.com/classroom/writing4kids.htm/]
* You can have fun and learn to write English sentence patterns with random / automatic sentence generators: http://www.manythings.org/sm/ (you can use it even when you are offline).
* You can generate your poem or story using some programs.
* You can download some free software on your PC or on a CD and use it to write sentences, quotes, stories: http://www.writesparks.com/
Conclusion V
To help our students improve their writing skills and be more positive, there are important things to remember:
* Simple activities at the word or sentence level are recommended to provide young learners with basic skills and the opportunity to develop their writing confidence.
* It is at all times important that the teacher shows a willingness to write with and for the students, thus acting as a model and inspirer of their written language.
* With ICT, communication through writing becomes as natural as communication through speech.