If you're interested in working on writing with your language students, having them practice writing in a word processor software is not a bad idea.

A lot of university bound students will need to have advanced word processing skills to deal with the writing load they will encounter in their classes.  Even students who are not going into university programs benefit from being able to use computers to aid their writing.

A simple procedure would be to have your students initially hand-write something for your class.  You're the best judge of what this should be.  Just keep it relevant and in line with their ability.  Having done that (and I do believe that writing should always involve some work with a pencil and paper), have them do a second version on a computer using MS Word (or similar software).

When you do this there are a great many things you can do as a teacher.  You can do lessons that develop your students' meta awareness of the software (how to format, proper editing techniques, etc.), or you can simply have them type it up and hand it in.  The choice is yours.  However for most language students, developing some awareness of English language based word processing software is essential.  Not all langauges deal with computer based text in the same way, and so you'll find many of your students are aware of some of the basics of English langauge word processing.

At a minimum encourage them to learn how to use the spelling checker - making sure to point out some of their limitaions (most specifically not being 100% comprehensive in the collection of vocabulary - e.g. Family Names).  On a similar note, you should always encourage your students to AVOID grammar checkers.  I have yet to find a computer based grammar checker that was any better than a drunk monkey.  They will end up confusing your students and providing bad or worse, incorrect, suggestions on how to correct their grammar.

So, as you're planning your writing courses, be sure to include computers as well - if you can.

Cheers,

Eric

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the Teachers Call RSS Feed. When you subscribe you will get updates provided regularly to your RSS reader. It is a great way to stay up to date with the latest in CALL information and ideas. So go ahead and subscribe right now.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!