The past six weeks of writing workshop have been a rewarding challenge for me as a teacher. I came into this project looking for a way to develop my skills as a teacher of writing by answering the question, "How do EFL kindergartners engage in Writing Workshop?" In the process of answering this question, I found my students developing positive attitudes towards writing while I was developing positive habits as a teacher. Here are several things I have taken away from my experience running Writing Workshop for EFL kindergartners:
1. Students can enjoy writing.
For most of my teaching career, students saw writing as a chore. Much of the writing they did consisted of responding to question prompts, copying sentences from a board, or was met with heavy corrections and editing from teachers. By giving students a voice in their writing through free choice, applying sensitive methods of correction, and giving consistent positive feedback on successes, students learned to love writing. After only a few days of implementing Writing Workshop, students would ask that we do more writing activities during class time. Later, students would ask for writing paper during play time where they would write stories or personal letters to friends and family.
2. Students are motivated by meaningful and authentic activities.
Meaningful communication and authenticity are foundational principles for modern ESL/EFL instruction (Brown, 2007). Writing Workshop naturally allows for realistic written communication to take place. Students knew they had an audience, either through sharing with their peers, me reading their work during conferencing, or having work displayed for all to see. The information students wrote about came from their experiences and the knowledge they brought to the classroom (Calkins, 2011, Graves 1985). This led to a group of students who were motivated and engaged in Writing Workshop.
3. Conferencing is valuable for both the students and teacher.
Students from all skill levels saw measurable improvement in specific areas of writing. Much of the improvement came in areas addressed during conferencing. By having one on one time with students, I could determine areas where I wanted each student to focus to best improve their writing performance. I could also monitor student's attitudes, fears, inhibitions, and motivators during conferencing and develop plans to address them. Students were motivated by the attention they received during conferencing time as well. By seeing I read their work, they had an audience. By conferring with students regularly, I could also determine which areas to address to the whole class during mini-lessons.
4. Writing Workshop encourages good teaching practices.
There was a staggering amount of information to take in over the course of one Writing Workshop. Recording information from conferencing and sharing time was essential to monitoring student progress, developing future plans, and ensuring all students were receiving feedback. By having one on one time with students and recording what they did, what I talked about, and how they responded, I was able to learn more specific information about the students than I had before. This not only helped me diagnose and respond to student needs, but it also facilitated communication with my co-teacher, school administration, and parents about how students were doing and how I was facilitating their learning.
5. Sharing time must be carefully and clearly structured.
Sharing time could turn a bit chaotic if students had difficulty following the routines. Instructions and models of sharing time needed to be clearly presented to students several times when Writing Workshop began and periodically afterwards to make it a manageable activity. I tried to enable students to be able to present their work, interact with others by asking questions or giving feedback, and respond to questions and feedback. Asking and answering questions on student work proved to be difficult for EFL kindergartners though, even with regular modeling and guidance (Hertz & Heydenberl, 1997).
6. Language modeling techniques vary in effectiveness from student to student.
Some students benefited from a free, open structure in Writing Workshop that allowed them to express their voice in their writing. Other students were overwhelmed by that freedom and needed more explicit support from language models. It was important to identify how students reacted to different language models. After learning how students reacted, I varied my modeling techniques to address the varying needs and skills of the students. I was able to predict which students would need some extra feedback to get the most out of their performance after a certain style of language modeling.
7. Teaching Writing Workshop is a skill that takes time to develop like any other.
The first week of teaching Writing Workshop was particularly difficult. I had just become familiar with the concept of Writing Workshop and did not fully understand the main principles behind how it operates. Combining hands on experience and continued research helped improve the effectiveness of my class's Writing Workshop. I still feel there is a lot of room for improvement in how I develop and present mini-lessons, model language, effectively conference, and promote sharing time. I feel confident that with more time and effort, I will become a more effective teacher of Writing Workshop.
How does this experience affect my future?
Identifying a personal weakness, discovering a teaching strategy that addresses my weakness, researching how to go about running it, and then carefully observing how my students engage in it has been a wonderfully rewarding experience. There are several areas where my teaching practice will be affected in the future by this experience researching Writing Workshop.
First, I will incorporate more written notes into my teaching routines. Recording how students engaged in Writing Workshop gave me valuable insight into their needs and how I should address them. I expect similar benefits from writing observations of students engaging in other subjects we study. I will better understand my students, develop better strategies for addressing their needs, and be able to justify these strategies to others involved like parents and school administration.
Secondly, I found that doing research in the classroom brought out the best of me as a teacher. I was more engaged in my students' development and in the professionalism of my teaching practice than ever before. I would like to continue to do classroom based research as a form on ongoing professional development. I learned valuable technical information through research and learned a lot about myself as a teacher and my students through observation. My teaching environment is likely to change in the next few years and research will help me adapt to new challenges.
Thirdly, I want to learn more about student's opinions and experiences in my classroom directly from the students in the future. While it only took a short time to develop interview questions and to interview the students, I learned valuable information I would not have been able to observe. I was amazed at how even young Kindergartners could assess and give detailed, honest opinions on an activity like they did when interviewed about Writing Workshop. Feedback from the students could help make other areas of my teaching practice more effective too.
Lastly, this experience reinforced the importance of activities that promote authentic, meaningful communication in the ESL/EFL classroom. Seeing how student attitudes toward writing changed when writing became a meaningful activity was eye opening. This concept can apply to all skills and students of all skill levels. Writing Workshop was the first teaching technique I have used to make writing in the classroom so realistic. I will carry this experience with me to my next classroom and employ as much of what I learned here as possible.