Having students copy down writing is good for them. Image: bgblogging
I honestly think it could be a serious error in our ways: the method we've increasingly become used to when it comes to presenting written passages to our students for the purposes of having them notice and respond to things in them.
That is, giving them the writing input/model on a plate. Already written out, on a permanent handout or coursebook page which the students can take away from the class.
Don't get me wrong. Having writing samples to discuss and then take home and look at further down the line is, of course, an excellent thing for students to have.
But it should be copied down in notebooks by the learners.
Whether it is looking at a sample provided on the board, or via a beam projector, or even on a handout (which is returned to the teacher at the end of class -- gosh, imagine the trees that would save!), students should be reading and copying down their own permanent versions on paper of their own.
Pre-provided permanent samples and models in print basically encourage students to be lazy and reduce the overall salience of the input. The text is glanced at rather than experienced the way a writer experiences it.
For language learners in particular, the process of copying out texts is a fantastic way to slow down the language and encourage some noticing of the finer details (before the teacher with the whole class helps them notice some of the bigger picture things happening with the text). It also encourages more uptake in the form of chunks, as learners gradually learn to memorise phrases and parts of clauses in order to speed up the copying process.
I would take this further and say that beyond just the inputs/models/samples, everything the learners do as part of their writing study should be copied down.
Gap-fill paragraph with brief instructions and word bank to the right? Write out the whole thing, thank you, and then fill in the gaps!
Reading comprehension questions alongside the input text? Copy down the questions and then write your answers. Or (and this is what I had to learn how to do during my L1 schooling), write your answers in full sentences that also indicate what the question was about.
It's time-consuming, of course.
But it is not a waste of time. It's a very good use of time!
And funnily enough, one of the reasons (I think) so much swishes over the heads of our learners and drifts out that open window at the back of the classroom is because... we don't give it enough time. Time to breathe. Time to sink adequately into and beneath the outermost surface.
We chat about a writing sample and then say "on with it, then, write your own essay now" or "fill in those gaps in the following practice exercise -- should only take you a couple of minutes." And then we barrel on to the next unit or exercise in the book.
Copying down text is very good for writing development and language development.
Our learners need to do more of it.
=D
