Writing and ‘creating’

One possible objection to a course such as that outlined above is that it is severely functional. While it is true that most people learn foreign languages for functional reasons, it

may well be asked what role there is in EFL for a creative approach to writing.

It should be said at once that the kind of scheme outlined can be exciting, particularly when students genuinely feel that they are progressing successfully, and also that it can

include imaginative story writing, both guided and free. At the same time, in the early stages, there is a tendency to

emphasise accuracy at the expense of the fluency which can add genuine pleasure to the process of composition,

particularly for the able student, in a foreign language. In practice, it may be sensible at the early stages to divide the

aims, and to tell students that the purpose of the main writing course is to develop accuracy in the first instance, but

that the teacher will be delighted to look at—for example—a diary or anything else written solely for pleasure in English.

However, it is inadvisable to express willingness to ‘correct’ mistakes, otherwise the situation is back to that of

approaching a random mass of errors which cannot be systematically treated, and the whole purpose of the early

controlled composition work was to avoid that. At the same time the teacher should be willing to discuss the content of

freely written work with the students and to encourage them in every way, but they need to be made aware that they must

have an ability to do ‘normal’ writing in English before they can justify being experimental. The emphasis in this chapter

has been on controlling, defining and organising the writing course. It is clearly advantageous to the teacher to know

exactly what he is doing, but even more the organisation enables the student to see his own progress in terms of a scheme. This builds up his confidence, and with language teaching confidence can be enormously important.