Tracey on Writing

Steve: Tracey, you have been you have a lot of experience, first of all, as an English teacher, primarily though, teaching native speakers, is that correct?

Tracey: Yes. That's true. Steve: And primarily high school students or elementary school students?

Tracey: High school. junior high and high school students.

Steve: I see. And I guess as an English teacher in high school, you are involved, then, with literature and composition, writing, those kinds of things?

Tracey: All those sorts of things, yes.

Steve: OK, and what sorts of difficulties do native speakers have in their writing?

Tracey: Usually, with native speakers, the most common problems that they experience is with organization and effectiveness. They know the words that they want to use but sometimes they have trouble expressing themselves in the right way, putting their ideas in the right order so that the most important ideas are first and the secondary ideas come later. But sometimes they also have a problem with vocabulary. If they haven't or if they are not writing at the level that they should be, or if they are not reading at the level that they should be, then they also have a problem with vocabulary and actually choosing the right words to use. Steve: Right. Now, in your experience now with The Linguist and correcting the writing submissions that you've received, how have you found, what has been the major difference between our learners here at The Linguist who are non-native speakers and the native speaker students that you had in the school system? Tracey: Vocabulary and phrasing would be the main difference. It seems that when non-native speakers write, the first obstacle that they have to overcome is increasing their vocabulary and improving their phrasing. With a native English speaker, we already how the words and phrases should go together to sound natural, but with somebody just learning the language, they have to learn that first, before they can then progress on to put those words and phrases together in a natural way to create a good sentence.

Steve: Right, I know a lot of the writing samples that we get are actually quite interesting. I mean people have quite a lot of interesting things to say.

Tracey: Oh, yes.

Steve: But, as you say, sometimes it's the vocabulary and the phrasing. What kinds of advice? are there sort of general bits of advice that you can give the non-native speaker learner?

Tracey: The sorts of advice I usually give when I speak to these learners after they have submitted writing, is to expose themselves to the language as much as possible. Take the opportunity to listen to an English TV program or to do more listening with The Linguist. Have a conversation with somebody that they wouldn't normally have in English. You know, just exposure to the language all the time.

Steve: And do you find that writing, I mean some people, for example, say, well "I don't need to write", you know, "I just want to have a conversation". Of course, it's a lot easier to just have a chit-chat, you know, a conversation with someone, but how do you feel? Is writing an important discipline if you want to improve your language skills?

Tracey: Oh, it most certainly is, you know. Putting words and phrases together in a natural way when you are writing will help you to also do it when you are speaking. Because we always tell people to, even in the regular school system, we tell people "'do not write how you talk, talk how you write. " Steve: Interesting. So that's very interesting. Yes. I must say, I agree with that. I think that, you can never, I mean if you speak a little more formally, if you speak more like written, say, English, that's never a mistake. Never a mistake. It upgrades your English.

Tracey: Exactly.

Steve: In a sense you sound more intelligent or you sound more persuasive.

Tracey: That's true. Steve: Whereas if you write the way you speak, the way some people speak, and inevitably, some people are more casual when they are speaking, then your writing can look quite unimpressive.

Tracey: Yes, it can.

Steve: Tell me, have you noticed progress in your students as they have been writing here at The Linguist?

Tracey: Oh, I most certainly have and it seems that the students who submit writing samples often and who get that feedback, they have made improvements. You can tell that they practice when you speak to them, as well, because they start putting words and phrases together in a more natural way in their speech. And they often say that their listening has improved a little bit or their reading has improved. So, writing can help you in all these aspects.

Steve: Yeah, I certainly agree with you. I gather too, Tracey, you are going to put together, over the next few weeks or so, a little, sort of, summary of your thoughts on things the more advanced writers, the more advanced learners can do to improve the way they organize their ideas in writing?

Tracey: Yes, I certainly am. You know, writing is a process and there are certain steps that have to be followed. And even when I was in the school system, I would often use the analogy that writing is like building a house. You would not put the roof on the house before you had the walls, and you would not put up the walls until you had a solid foundation to put them on. And writing is exactly the same way. You need that foundation that. natural sounding words and phrases, before you can start to build on things like structure, cohesion, effectiveness. So this is going to be the focus of the writing process that I am putting together.

Steve: Great! Well, that's very interesting. This is of course a bit of an experiment here, as we're going to post some of these discussions on our blog. And I'm not sure what the quality of this discussion?. There you are at one end of Canada on the Atlantic, and I'm here on the Pacific, and we're speaking across our computer and hopefully we will record it and the quality will be good enough that other people can also listen to our conversation. Tracey: Yes, I hope so.

Steve: Okay, and we'll talk again. Tracey: OK, Steve.

Steve: Thanks very much Tracey: Bye bye