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Chapter One: The Writing skill

Introduction
Writing is gaining a growing concern among ELT researchers. Indeed, it is no longer considered as an afterthought; rather, it has become a self-contained area of study in its own right. Research in writing transcends L1(presently we mean English) contexts and widens its horizons to deal with the matter in ESL and EFL situations.The present chapter, will look at this skill and its relatedness to other skills and areas of knowledge in language. Moreover, it will look at common methodological orientations as far as its teaching is concerned. Besides, it will sketch the different stages of writing development and discuss some related issues of feedback, evaluation and assessment.

1.1 The act of writing

As a starting point in this chapter, it seems worthwhile to get a clear picture of what the writing act is. According to Byrne, writing is making use of graphic symbols which represent the sounds of the language.These symbols, he adds, must be arranged in specific ways to form words, and words, in turn, must be arranged to form sentences(1). In like manner, Lado defines it as "the ability to use the structures, the lexical items, and their conventional representation, in ordinary matter-of-fact writing" (249). It is quite noticeable that the aforementioned definitions have hardly alluded to the fact that writing is a communicative activity. Rather, they emphasised just its physical aspect. Above all, writing is not an end in itself, but a vehicle upon which we express ourselves. Hence, "it is some kind of graphic expession" (Crystal 257).

1.2 Learning to write

Learning how to write is a very complex matter in the process of language acquisition. Basically, it involves gaining the literacy skills that enable a language speaker to put it in a written mode.To reach this goal, one has to start from the writing system up to discourse level at which the written language can be used as a coherent whole for various purposes. Contrary to native speakers, who possess a firm ground in orall skills, FL and SL learners with almost no background knowledge in the target language- spend a considerable period of time to reach the stage of writing proficiency. In their context, most attention is directed towards the textual features such as orthography, mechanics, grammatical structures and lexical items. As far as the content is concerned, it is of capital interest to mention that FL student writers draw on their experience in L1 in terms of knowledge and strategies of composing (Friedlander 109).

1.3 The importance of writing

It is hardly debatable that writing has a central role to play in effective communication. Many are the situations which require a certain proficiency in writing ability.To list just a few like writing notes, filling out forms, giving written instructions and writing letters (Raimes, "Techniques" 3).To be deprived from all that means simply being on the margin of society.Thus, it is worth the effort to get control over the written mode of language in order be on the safe side. Still to say, writing is much more needed and important in FL and SL learning settings. The majority of EFL teachers view writing as a valuable tool that helps their students in learning. It is considered as a productive phase in which learners appeal to what they have learnt. To phrase it differently, writing helps students to reinforce the vocabulary and grammatical structures that have been practised orally. Byrne reports that

for some students "writing is likely to be an aid to retention, if only because they feel more at ease and relaxed" (7). The importance of writing resides also in being a key indicator of the improvement of learners. Teachers often -especially in formal tests- measure their students' achievements through the writing meduim. Harmer states that: In the context of education, it is also worth remembering that most exams, whether they are testing foreign language abilities or other skills, often rely on the students' writing proficiency

in order to measure their knowledge ("How to Teach" 220). Consequently, the more proficient students are in the writing skill, the more likely they are to pass formal examinations. Another issue which makes writing essential is that it clears thinking (Cooper et al 1). In fact, before getting started to write on a given topic, the ideas appear to be dim and undiscernable.Yet, once getting involved in the task, ambiguaty will be no longer a challenging problem.Writing, by virtue of its nature, matures ideas and clarifies them before they take on shape on papers. It is only at this very stage that writers can achieve what Rivers et al call 'Lucid writing' which is the offspring of well-developed ideas ("A Practical Guide" 320). Apparently, the process of ideas refinement will be hard and troublesome unless one gets into the habit of doing so.

1.4 The difficulty of writing

For the majority of novice student writers, filling a blank paper is by no means an easy task. It is an activity that is, most of the time, accompanied by frustration; especially, at the first moments. This feeling, in fact, is common among writers who write in their

mother languages let alone those who write in a foreign one.Tribble claims that "the ability to write appropriately and effectively is something which evades many of us, in our mother tongues or in any other languages we may wish to learn" (4).To put it in simpler terms, if the writing activity is deemed as difficult for native speakers, it will be without any doubt harder for FL learners. The difficulty of writing is due to many factors. However, the degree of emphasis on a given factor is fairly debatable. For Raimes, for example, "the difficulties that students encounter while writing do not stem from lack of words or correct grammar but these difficulties are largely due to the problem of finding ideas and communicating them" ("Techniques" 13). In fact, the problem of ideas cannot be underestimated since the ultimate aim of our writings -as noted earlier- is communicating and conveying ideas.Yet, Widdowson looks at the whole matter from a different standpoint. For him, the problem is "textual rather than discoursal" ("New Starts" 45).Thus, the main challenge that faces FL learners is how to translate what they want to convey into correct expressions and well-formed sentences. Notwithstanding this controversy, it is wise to say that both issues are problematic, added to other problems.Taken together, they can be classified under three headings: psychological, linguistic and cognitive problems (Byrne 4).

1.4.1 Psychological problems

As opposed to speech, in writing the interlocutor is not present.Thus " writing is essentially a solitary activity and the fact we are required to write on our own, without the possibility of interaction , in itself makes writing difficult" (Byrne Understandably, this feature of loneliness in doing creates a discouraging atmosphere. 4).

1.4.2 Linguistic problems

The first thing to be noted in writing is that words are largely relied on to get the message across, and resorting to prosodic features like stress, rhythm or intonation is not possible. Further, there is no recourse to gestures or facial expressions in case there is a breakdown or a misunderstanding. Byrne suggests that the only remaining option for us to maintain ongoing intraction is through well-constructed, cohesive sentences (5).

1.4.3 Cognitive problems

Byrne notes that " writing is learnt through a process of instruction: we have to master the written form of the language and to learn certain structures which are less used in speech"(5). Basically, instruction requires making much more efforts and bothering oneself with the do's and the don'ts of the subject at hand. And this in itself poses a cognitive problem. The above classification is really helpful in the sense that it assists writing teachers to identify in a broad manner what may hinder their students to improve their writing capacities. It has been proved that knowing the sources of problems in advance saves a lot of time and efforts for teachers (Lado, "Linguistics" 3). One thing which is worth pointing out is that linguistic problems take the lion's share among students' concern. Hyland reports that L2 learners identify grammar or vocabulary as the most problematic areas whenever they try to write something (34).

1.5 Grammar and writing

The ability to write appropriately and effectively implies being good at manipulating grammatical rules. Even though well-formed sentences may well result in nonsense, one's ability to write is judged, most of the time, by grammatical accuracy.This is not an

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overemphasis on grammar since "control over surface features is crucial, and students need an understanding of how words, sentences, and larger discourse structures can shape and express the meanings they want to convey" (Hyland 5). On top of that "recent research in the field of second language acquisition and development has pointed to some advantages in procedures which raise learners' consciousness of particular grammatical forms" (Carter et al 79). Admittedly, grammar plays a critical role in producing the meaning. No wonder then when Tribble notes that the lack of language rules may well stand as an obstacle in the way of producing a piece of writing.When a learner feels a shortage of some language forms, he/she may run the risk of being frustrated (75). Taking a converging way to that of Tribble, Greenbaum enunciates that her "own experience as a teacher and a writer convinces [her] that learning about grammatical structures, word order and cohesive devices can improve the writing style" (29). From what precedes, one can understand the reason why grammar is awarded a special position in any EFL writing course. Unsurprisingly, learners themselves cannot afford to leave away grammar for the reason that it gives them security and confidence in what they write. For them, the necessity of grammar to writing is analogous to that of the backbone to a body. Hence, it can be considered as an unseparable part of teaching writing.

1.6 Vocabulary and writing

As it is already noted earlier, in writing contrary to speech- dependence on language prosodic features like stress and intonation is altogether impossible. The success of conveying messages through the writing meduim is fundamentally related to the amount of words at one's disposal. Thus, knowledge of vocabulary which subsumes both content and function words is an urgent necessity to develop the writing ability.

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Given that it assumes an essential position in writing development, the lack of vocabulary is a real source of trouble especially in an FL setting. Widdowson points out that choosing the adequate lexical items is very problematic for FL learners ("New Starts" 34). This is so because they hardly find the words that best express their intended meanings. As a result, they fall in a discouraged state of mind which, in its turn, inhibits them from writing skill building. To avoid this undesired fiasco, learners must be provided with some core vocabulary since it is impractical to teach all the lexical items of language (Mc Carthy 49). Having this core vocabulary can be considered, at least, as a threshold that enables them to get started with their writing work. At this stage, Allen suggests that writing itself will help building up a considerable amount of vocabulary because the need for a given word enhances students to learn it (17). Further, the act of writing is a suitable opportunity to invest the vocabulary learned elsewhere.

1.7 Writing and visual materials

The fact that writing is not easy and represents a real problem to the majority of FL learners often lead teachers to make use of some teaching aids like visual materials to facilitate learning. Roughly speaking, visual materials are those materials which stimulate the vision of the learners in order to create a supportive atmosphere for accomplishing a difficult task. In fact, using these materials can yield fruitful results for all language activities in general, and for writing tasks in particular. Wright mentions five main functions that visual materials serve for writing activities: -To motivate the student. -To create a context within which his written text will have meaning.

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-To provide the student with information to refer to, including objects, actions, events, relationships. -To provide non-verbal cues for manipulation practice. -To provide non-verbal prompts to written composition (A. Wright 38). Having recognized the numerous benefits of utilizing visual materials for writing tasks, it is fair to say that a lower-level writing class without them will painstakingly realize its objectives. Therefore, language teachers are highly encouraged to make use of this kind of materials. In addition to their usefulness, there is a great flexibility in exploiting them. Byrne explains that teachers are free to use them the way they like. It is possible that one picture can be used in various writing tasks for different proficiency levels (84).

1.8 Writing compared to other skills

In a genuine teaching-learning situation, the four language skills namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing cannot be dealt with in isolation. The combination of two or more skills is inevitable; though, a special focus may be given to one skill. In a real life situation, the four skills are integrated in a way that one skill feeds the other. Therefore, opting for a comparison between writing and speaking on the one hand, and writing and reading on the other is pertinant.

1.8.1 Writing and speaking

The first thing to be noticed is that these two skills are productive. This entails that they do share some similarities. According to Byrne "Both the spoken and the written forms can draw on the same linguistic resources of the language, its grammar and lexis" (15). Yet, it seems paramount to scrutinize the differences existing between these two skills. One reason for this is well-expressed by Tribble when he states that "It is important

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to notice the fundamental differences between speaking and writing" (10).Tribble argues that doing this will undoubtedly help " to understand that written texts are not just spoken [ones] written down" (10). To put differently, the written language is not a natural extension of the spoken language. Raimes mentions some of the differences that exist between speech and writing ("Techniques" 4-5). As a matter of fact, it is deemed useful to put these differences in a table in the purpose of making things easier and clearer.

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Speech
-speech is universal;

writing
everyone -not everyone learns to read and

acquires a native language in the write. first few years. - [it] has dialect variations. -the written language generally demands standard forms of

grammar, syntax and vocabulary. -speakers use their voices (pitch, -writers have to rely on the words stress, and rhythm) and bodies on the (gestures and facial expressions) to meaning. help convey their ideas. -speakers use pauses and intonation. -speakers pronounce. -writers use punctuation. page to express their

-speaking is usually spontaneous -writers spell. and unplanned. right there [ to respond]. -speech is usually informal and -for the writer, the reader's response repetitive. -speakers use simple is delayed or non-existent. sentences -writing is more formal and -most writing takes time.It is

-a speaker speaks to a listner who is planned.

connected by a lot of and's and compact. but's. -writers use complex sentences, with connecting words like

however, who and in addition.

Table 2.1 The differences between speech and writing

The differences outlined in the table above reveal clearly that when writing, it is quite significant to abide by certain characteristics which are specific to this skill. Thus, novice writers should take into consideration these differences between the two skills if they are

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to produce good pieces of writing. It would sound strange if one made use of some expressions which are common in informal conversations while writing a formal letter, for instance.

1.8.2 Writing and reading

The position of writing as a productive skill implies the existence of some sort of reception. In other words, writing is an outcome of a given processed input. Basically, the processing of this input takes place, most of the time, while reading which involves decoding a message. This is better understood in Eisterhold's quotation, Reading in the writing classroom is understood as the appropriate input for acquisition of writing skills because it is generally assumed that reading passages will somehow function as primary models from which writing skills can be learned. (88) Unsurprisingly, teachers often take it for granted that before asking their learners to write something, they proceed first in giving them a text to read. In so doing, they seem to join Hyland's view when he suggests that "Reading provides input for both content and the appropriate means of its expression" (17). Actually, Hyland builds upon Krashen's view of language writing acquisition. According to Krashen "Research suggests that language writing skills cannot be acquired successfully by practice in writing alone but also need to be supported with extensive reading" (qtd. in Hyland 17). So far the importance of reading alongside developing the writing skills has been stressed. Needless to mention, the texts that should be read by the learners have to be suitable to their level; otherwise, they will not serve as a comprehesible input during the instructional course.

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1.9 Appraoches of teaching writing

Writing, as seen earlier, is a complex activity that requires a range of knowlege and subskills, and the issue of teaching it is much more complicated.Teachers often take pains when they deal with a writing task because choosing the best way to go about teaching it seems to be difficult at times and irksome at others. It is noteworthy that there is no one single way to teach this skill. By and large, there are three principal ways of approaching the task: focus on the form, focus on the writer and focus on the reader (Tribble 37). Each focus is associated with a specific approach.These approaches are respectively: product-oriented approach, process-oriented, and genre-oriented approach. Hyland claims that, "each orientation illuminates just one aspect of writing" (13). Hence, it is import to put each approach under scrutiny.

1.9.1 Product-oriented approach

As its name suggests, this approach gives most attention to the final product which is by definition "the end result of our labours and has about it an air of finality and completeness" (Brookes et al 22). What is of capital importance in this approach is the outcome of the task. Nunan points out that it puts much emphasis on the final product of the writing process in terms of accuracy, completeness and correctness ("Language Teaching" 86). In fact, the notions of accuracy and correctness are considered as primary in writing for the focus is on form. Hence, aspects of language such as grammatical structures, lexical items as well as mechanics and spelling are accorded a great deal of priority (Hedge 8). It is no accident, then, that this approach is very common in instructional lessons which are designed for beginning levels. Writing at this stage of language learning serves as an appropriate tool to scaffold what has been learnt orally. Teachers who use this

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approach often give their students texts as models to imitate and adapt. The common practice is copying, paragraph analysis, putting sentences in the right order, finding out topic sentences and supporting details, expanding a passage relying on hints or deletion. Although the product-oriented approach is highly profitable especially to teachers who take lower levels, it was subject to a great deal of criticism. Hyland, for example objects to the idea of considering form in writing as the whole story, explainig that "the goal of writing instruction can never be just training in explicitness and accuracy because written texts are always a response to a particular communicative setting" (5). Likeways, Brookes et al find that "the more product oriented a writing class is, the more difficult it will be for students to write well" (4). The reason for saying this is that appealing to ready-made texts for emulation hinders to a large extent the creativity of students who already grasped the formal conventions. On top of that, this approach overlooks the steps that precede and lead to the final outcome of the task. Basically, before accomplishing a writing task, it is practically desirable to go through various stages which inextricably represent a whole process.

1.9.2 Process-oriented approach

Contrary to product-oriented approach, this one is highly concerned with the writer who "is viewed as originator of written text, and the process through which [he/she] goes to create and produce discourse is the most important component in the theory" (Johns 25). For the advocates of this approach, emphasizing the product rather than its producer would be like putting the cart before the horse. Hence, the focus is shifted towards the writing process taking into consideration the importance of teacherlearner interaction and content (O' Mally et al 139).

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The central belief in the process approach is that the writer does not get things right from the first attempt. Rather, many drafts have to be written and read before the final one is edited. Moreover, the teacher's intervention during the writing process is essential because s/he is supposed "to guide students through [it] to help them develop strategies for generating, drafting, and refining ideas" (Hyland 10). In this approach, students are given ample time and feedback when necessary so as to enable them to come out with a satisfactory draft. Raimes states that in a process approach: The students do not write on a given topic in a restricted time and hand in the composition for the teacher to correct Rather, they explore the topic through writing, showing the teacher and each other their drafts, and using what they write to read over, think about and move then on to new ideas. ("Techniques" 10) Producing a polished, coherent whole is preceded by doing many intermediate activities which can be translated into the following stages: Getting goals Generating ireas Organizing information and selecting appropriate language Making a draft Reviewing Editing The above mentioned stages seem to occur in a linear way: one stage leading to another. Actually, they are subtly interrelated and "cannot be thought of as forming some kind of tidy lenear progression" (Brookes et al 23). One may well go back to generating ideas after reviewing. In short, the stages are recursive. From a process perspective, writing

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would be of great benefit and interest if done in small groups which would facilitate students contribution and feedback to each other ( Rivers, "A Practical Guide" 320). The process-oriented approach is in fact theoretically attractive especially in paying much heed to the different phases that student writers go through in order to produce a coherent piece of writing. However, practical problems would arise if moved to a classroom setting. One of the major problems is the insufficiency of time (Harmer, "The Practice" 258). Time is truly a big classroom constraint that teachers have to abide by during the presentation of their lessons. Hence teaching writing under this approach runs the risk of being impractical especially with large classes and limited allocated time.In addition to that, this theory was criticised on the ground that it did not prepare students to take exams. According to Horowitz, it" creates a classroom situation that bears little resemblance to the situations in which [students' writing] will eventually be exercised" (qtd. In Silva 16). Another worth mentioning flaw in this theory is that it fails to address the issue of the reader, and as a reaction to this weakness, another approach came to being.

1.9.3 The genre-oriented approach

In a genre approach to writing, much emphasis is laid upon the reader. And writing per se is viewed as a social act that serves primarily in communicating and getting things done. Consequently, interaction between writers and readers lies at the heart of this orientation.The framework provided within this approach is fairly pragmatic in terms of the tight link between the written product- text- and its goal or aim. It is believed that bearing a reader in one's mind while writing facilitates to realize the goal of the writing task (Raimes, "Techniques" 17).

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In fact, considering the issue of audience is a prerequisite given that people often write to achieve some purpose. Consciousness of readership affects both the way we write as well as the content (Brookes et al 13). Accordingly, student writers are bound to some conventions specific to the genre within which they write in the aim of achieving a purposeful communication. To this end, they should not violate the expectations of the prospective reader as far as form and content are concerned otherwise they will fall in the trap of not writing within the genre. To put it differently, each genre has a set of recognizable features without which it becomes difficult on the part of the reader to get the point being made. Apparently, it is good practice for learners to be familiarized with the linguistic features and the organizational patterns of a variety of genres through a conscious analysis (Harmer, "How to Teach" 24), in order to be able to interact in different social settings, and why not with several academic communities. It is assumed that the teacher's role is vital in helping student writers to analyze different genres in order to explore the conventions and norms associated with each one. Baiscally, this genre analysis is conducted through a selective reading which aims at extracting the idiosyncricies of the genre in question. The results of the analysis are crucially fruitful in terms of expected information to include and the order to be put in, worth adding elements and trivial ones (Hyland 28). Once these extracted features are utilized in the written product, the latter will undoubtedly be in perfect harmony with the genre requirements, and hence resulting in effective purposeful communication. The genre approach to writing is no exception when it comes to criticism and unearthing the limitations. Despite its great contribution to writing instruction in placing the socially-oriented nature of writing at the forefront, there are some worth noting reservations. In the first place, the role assumed by student writers is relatively passive

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(Yanghee et al 6) given that they depend on experts' texts. Moreover, students' creativity is not targeted and seen as secondary. In this respect, Hyland states that "the explicit teaching of genres can impose restrictive formulae which can shackle creativity to prescribed structures" (22). Having discussed the three main orientations as far as writing instruction is concerned, it is important to note that whatever theory is applied, it should never be taken as gospel. Rather, teachers can draw benefits from the three views, and form an optimal approach that caters for the needs of learners in various contexts.

1.10 The stages of development of the writing skill

In any language acquisition setting, writing is gained by formal instruction. It should be developed in a step-by-step method. So it is fair to say that learners have to experience many stages before they reach the level of free written expression. According to Rivers, there are five main stages that learners have to go through while developing their writing ability; they are respectively: copying, reproduction, recombination and adaptation, guided writing and composition ("Teaching Foreign" 245). It is worth noting that the above mentioned stages should not be taken in a straight forward way for two reasons. Firstly, there is no clear-cut line between them. Secondly, they may well overlap and recurse in the course of learning.

1.10.1Copying
This stage serves a great deal in familiarizing learners especially those whose L1 is divergent from FL- at beginning levels with the foreign language script. Activities during this phase are done in a mechanical way and focus learners' attention on some formal conventions of handwriting and mechanics like capitalizaion, spelling, and punctuation

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(Rivers "Teaching"

265). Although repetition drills are the dominant feature at this

stage, it can be considered as the stepping stone for the subsequent ones.

1.10.2 Reproduction
After relatively getting accustomed with the forgein language script, and manipulating some mechanical activities, students "will attempt to write without originality what [they have] learned orally and read in the textbook" (Rivers 246). This will involve them in reproducing small passages which have been read and practiced orally without going back to the original copy. Apparently, this stage requires good memory capacities and proficiency in the former one.

1.10.3 Recombination and adaptaion

As can be understood from its name, this stage takes learners into a further step in which they are supposed to "make changes in passage[s] that [were] given to them, but they will not add anything of their own" (Raimes "Techniques" 97). These minor

changes include mainly substitution, transformation, expansion and contraction (Rivers "Teaching" 248). Most of the activities during this stage turn around pattern practice in carefully selected texts.

1.10.4 Guided writing

Rivers suggests that at this stage students are allowed to write within a framework and are given some sort of freedom to choose the lexical and grammatical items which they view as appropriate to express the content (Rivers "Teaching" 250). The teacher's role is to guide his/her students by providing them with some hints concerning main ideas, supporting details and organization. In this way, the teacher saves them the time

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and effort and gives them an opportunity to focalize on the language of the paragraph or essay. Common types of activities at this level are paraphrasing and summarizing.

1.10.5 Composition
After gaining a reasonable proficiency in writing practice, learners will engage in free written expression. Now, they are required to write on a given theme or topic relying on their repertoire of strategies and the language at their disposal. In doing so, they demonstrate that they are capable of composing. A common type of activities in this stage is writing essays and compositions. Heaton notes that: The writing of a composition is a task which involves the student in manipulating words in grammatically correct sentences and in linking those sentences to form a piece of continuous writing which successfully communicates the writer's thoughts and ideas on a certain topic. (127) To sum up, learners at this stage are expected to convey their ideas, attitudes and feelings in correct English. Once they have done this, they turn to to their readers to have a say on their essays.

1.11 Responding to students' writing

It is well-known that student writers often write bearing in mind a prospective reader.This implies that they expect a positive or negative response to be given by their audience who is most of the time the teacher or classmates. This response takes the form

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of feedback which can be defined as "information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance"(Ur 242). As such, it serves as a means of formative assessment to remedy the points which stand as obstacles in the way of the learning process. Further, it " help[s] learners to alter their output in constructive and long-lasting ways" (Allwright et al 99), especially in the writing skill which is within the scope of this study. For Raimes, providing feedback on students' writing is of great benefit in impoving their writing skills ("Exploring" 1). Thus, she considers it elsewhere as part of the

teaching of writing ("Techniques" 139). These views are actually evidenced by the great desire that students show in receiving feedback from teachers. Basically, learners rely on their readers' comments to see how much progress has been made and how well or badly they have performed in a writing task. Therefore, the importance of feedback resides in being an indicator and incentive to improvement in the writing ability.

1.12 Writing assessment

The term assessment is used to "refer to the variety of ways to collect information on a learner's language ability or achievement" (Hyland 213). As far as writing evaluation is concerned, there are multiple forms to do so. They include discretepoint tests, essays, portfolios and projects. With regard to the position of writing assessment in language learning, Gere states that:

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Teachers and researchers alike acknowledge that pronouncing judgement on a piece of writing is both important and difficult. Important because teaching students for placement or admission, and research in composition depend all upon ability to discriminate levels of quality in writing. Difficult because the theoretical basis of evaluation remains unarticulated. (44) Geres advances that in spite of the necessity of writing evaluation to collect information about students' progress, firm grounds are not yet estalished to approach this task. It is often full of biased and impressionistic judgements which are, unfortunately, utilized in decisive matters.

1.12.1 Types of assessment 1.12.1.1 Formative assessment

In this type, the aim is to remedy what went wrong in a previous learning. From a practical standpoint, it happens in most classrooms, if not all, that students find some elements in a course somewhat problematic and need to be further explained. Actually, teachers are well aware of this situation especially when the majority of learners make similar mistakes. In this case, they have to intervene by providing additional activities in order to surmount all the problems standing in the way of learning ("Document d'Accompagnement" 92).

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1.12.1.2 Summative assessment

In summative assessment, however, teachers are mostly concerned with gathering information about how much has been learned by the end of a given course. This is done mainly by means of achievement tests. Primarily, the aim here is to spot light on the level of attainment that is reached by students after being taught within a specific period of time (Johnson 292). Equally importantly, the information provided can be utilized to "identify problems, suggest instructional solutions, and evaluate course effectiveness" (Hyland 212). It should be noted, nevertheless, that this type and the former have in common the characteristic of dealing with students as objects of evaluation. In other words, students are not involved as active partners in the process of assessment.

1.12.1.3 Self-assessment
Assuming responsibility in evaluating one's work is an orientation that is increasingly gaining ground in the pedagogy of teaching. Apparently, this view is a by-product of the prevalence of learner-centred methodology which is more concerned with learners and their interests. Self-assessment is based on the view that evaluation should not be confined just within the classroom."Learners can monitor their own language

performance in any and all settings that call for use of the target language, especially outside instructional periods" (Genesee et al 46). Brookes et al believe that "Learner self-evaluation is ultimately more important than teacher evaluation of learner writing"(60). The reason behind this is that self-assessment offers learners an opportunity to examine their own writing and find progress by themselves. Hence, they become critical and self-aware of their mistakes and the efficiency of their learning strategies and procedures.

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1.12.2 Methods of scoring

One of the most common classroom practices, as explained earlier, is that teachers set exams and tests to evaluate their students' learning. This is followed by a process of scoring that eventually results in coventional rates or numbers. In so doing, classroom teachers try to look for a tangible representation of the ability or skill being evaluated. This in turn will help them or any other institution to make decisions concerning the actual level of each and every student. Therefore, this task has to be approached with great care and caution in order to avoid getting a distorted picture as far as learners' level is concerned. Lado notes that the operation whereby a grade is given continues to be far from easy and can be conducted only by specialised people ("Language Testing" 250). In this way, classroom teachers have to be well informed, if not trained, about how to score their learners' work in an accurate manner. What falls in the sphere of our interest is actually how to score a student piece of writing.To achieve this task, three scoring types are available: primary-trait scoring, holistic and analytic scoring (Weigle 109-114).

1.12.2.1 Primary-trait scoring

This type of scoring rests upon the idea that in evaluation it is import to focus on a set of traits or features, one at a time. The presence of a specific trait in a learner's piece of writing is a good sign of grasping it. The rationale behind this tendency seems to be achieving more precision in scoring an essay or a composition. Hyland identifies some of the features that can be in focus such as "appropriate text staging, creative response, effective argument, reference to sources, audience design" (229). Understandably, features vary depending on the course objectives as well as on the proficiency level of

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students. Although scoring in this manner is clear and straightforward, it can be criticised as being partial and time-consuming (Weigle 110).

1.12.2.2 Holistic scoring

This method of scoring attempts to target the overal quality of writing rather than its components. From a holistic perspective, teachers rely on their intuitions and personal judgments to score a writing work (Genesee et al 206). As such, they hold a priori a set of criteria that distinguishes good from bad writing, and against these they determine the marks.This scoring method seems to be feasible and easy in this way; though, one can argue that the results may well fluctuate due to the different views of raters about what constitutes good writing. Another worth noting problem with a holistic approach to scoring is that classroom teachers cannot get insights from scores so that to check or adjust their instruction (Hyland 227). To attain this goal, an analytical method is required.

1.12.2.3 Analytic scoring

As its name suggests, this type "evaluate[s] separately the various components of a piece of writing" (Madsen 120). Contrary to the previous method, this one breaks up writing ability to separate areas such as mechanics, grammar, vocabulary and organisation.Each area is graded with respect to the objectives of the course and proficiency level of students. O'Malley et al point out that its advantages are in "providing feedback to students on specific aspects of their writing and in giving teachers diagnostic information for planning instruction" (144). All this stands as a good reason to consider this type as largely relevant in the teaching/learning process. The major problem with it, however, is that it takes too much time if compared to holistic scoring (Weigle 120).

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Conclusion
Summing this chapter up, we come to say that acquiring the writing skill is quite import for both learning and communicative purposes. Hence, learners have to persevere with the problems and difficulties that arise out while endeavoring to achieve proficiency in this skill. Teachers can facilitate its acquisition by benefiting from the different theories about its instruction, without neglecting the impact of other language skills. Also, it should not be forgotten that feedback and evaluation procedures which are interrelated and complementary- are likely to enhance the development of this valuable skill.