Teachers’ reported practices for teaching writing in England

Abstract

To date there have been no systematic studies examining the ways in which teachers in England focus and adapt their teaching of writing. The current study addresses this gap by investigating the nature and frequency of teachers’ approaches to the teaching of writing in a sample of English primary schools, using the ‘simple view of writing’ as a framework to examine the extent to which different aspects of the writing process are addressed. One hundred and eighty-eight staff from ten different schools responded to an online questionnaire. Only the data from class teachers (n = 88) who responded to all items on the questionnaire were included in the final analyses. Respondents enjoyed teaching writing and felt prepared to teach it. However, despite feeling that they were effective in identifying approaches to support students’ writing, nearly half reported that supporting struggling writers was problematic for them. Overall teachers reported more work at word level, occurring several times a week, than with transcription, sentence or text levels, which were reported to occur weekly. Planning, reviewing and revising occurred least often, only monthly. For these variables no differences were found between teachers of younger (age 4–7) and older students (age 8–11). By contrast, an examination of specific aspects of each component revealed differences between the teachers of the two age groups. Teachers of younger students focused more frequently on phonic activities related to spelling, whereas teachers of older students focussed more on word roots, punctuation, word classes and the grammatical function of words, sentence-level work, and paragraph construction.

Teaching Writing in Grades 7–9 in Urban Schools in Chinese Societies in Asia

“…Seventy‐five percent of middle school Chinese teachers in this study indicated that their college preparation was inadequate. This is consistent with prior studies showing that most teachers in middle school and other grades share this opinion about college preparation (Brindle et al., ; Dockrell et al., ; Gilbert & Graham, ; Graham et al., 2104; Ray et al., ), although this is not always the case (Cutler & Graham, ; Veiga Simão et al., ).…”

“…This first prediction was supported because teachers in each city evidenced clear variability in their responses to almost all items involving preparation to teach writing, beliefs about writing, and writing instructional practices. Such variability has been common in prior surveys in China (Hsiang & Graham, ) and other locations around the world (e.g., De Smedt et al., ; Dockrell et al., ; Graham et al., ; Veiga Simão et al., ).…”

“…Consistent with Applebee and Langer's () findings, teachers surveyed used a variety of evidence‐based practices but applied them infrequently. This minimalist approach to teaching writing reaches beyond the United States, as surveys conducted in Europe, Africa, and South America yielded similar descriptions (De Smedt, Van Keer, & Merchie, ; Dockrell, Marshall, & Wyse, ; Michaelowa, ; Veiga Simão, Malpique, Frison, & Marques, ).…”

“…As was the case with college preparation, our findings provide support for a broader global concern that writing instruction in many classrooms worldwide is not adequate (Graham & Rijlaarsdam, ). Although it is clear that some teachers provide a rich and engaging writing program (Applebee & Langer, ; Cutler & Graham, ; Parr & Jesson, ; Tse & Hui, ), the more common portrait of writing instruction globally is that students in affluent nations (e.g., Brindle et al., ; De Smedt et al., ; Dockrell et al., ; Graham et al., ; Ray et al., ) and developing nations (e.g., Hsiang & Graham, ; Michaelowa, ; Veiga Simão et al., ) spend little time being taught how to write. Even though this investigation involved different cultural, social, political, institutional, historical, and language contexts than in most prior studies, the broad picture was still the same.…”

Source-Based Tasks in Writing Independent and Integrated Essays

“…On the other hand, the main focus of second language writing instruction has been the exclusive use of independent writing practices and is well evident in previous research (Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005;Dockrell, Marshall, & Wyse, 2015;Miao, Badger, & Zhen, 2006;Storch 2005;Wigglesworth & Storch, 2012;Yasuda, 2015).…”