Teaching writing to students
Eirini-Myrsini Papani Writing emerged as a mental need of the human beings for self-expression and as an aid to keep it in the memory of the potential readers. Therefore, it goes beyond the boundaries of a single encoding activity and the visual demonstration of symbols, and takes on several, multiple cultural and sociolinguistic roles. However, writing is not a natural activity, and, therefore, has always to be taught. Especially, when dealing with a foreign language the learning process becomes even more complicated and teaching must be as much effective as possible. Until recently, traditional, restrictive approaches to writing, asphyxiatingly insisting on structural and formal correctness, convicted the novice writers to lack fresh, spontaneous texts. As Zamel (1976:29) puts it, according to these ‘text-based’ approaches “ exercises and drills on structures and forms will improve the students’ ability to compose”. If this is the case, then how can be explained the fact that student...