A Reflexive Note. Vera Murashova
A Reflexive Note
To start with, I would like to say that the
idea of writing in our own blogs, despite its singularity, turned out to be
very interesting. I really like this new and unusual way of sharing our essays
where not only a teacher can read and analyze it but also our groupmates. Moreover,
I like the idea of making comments and discussing there some interesting topics
or arguable questions. Next, speaking about the themes which were offered to
write about, I think they are interesting enough. I like that we were free from
such boring topics as “Computers and Our Life”, “Friendship”, “Education” and
so on. Instead of it we were reading and summarizing The Guardian, were writing about “The Right to Die”, “Anxiety and
Depression”, “Ways of Improving Vocabulary” etc., which I found quite up-to-date.
What was not so much useful, as for me, is some
exercises from the textbook, sometimes they were too easy to waste our time on them.
Nevertheless, it is the way the lessons go that is why I am not to complain
about it.
The next semester I would like to learn
more about the way of writing, some interesting techniques or tricks. I would
like to improve my writing skills and become a ‘creative’ writer, because I think
that writing by patterns is an old school. By the way, do you agree with me or
not? Maybe it is more important to write following the academic format with its
formal style and lexis? Let us discuss it in the comments below.
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ReplyDeleteVera, thanks for your reflection: it was useful for me to learn both about what you found useful and what you found not that useful. I was quite satisfied to learn that you found commenting your peers' posts useful.
DeleteThe question you raised about writing by patterns beinng "an old school" deserves a more detailed discussion, which we can have in class when we meet the next time. For now I can just say that writing to learn based on some models is one of the approaches to teaching it. It is called "A product approach to writing".
Here is an article from the Teaching English British Council website in which 2 common approaches to teaching writing are discussed:
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/product-process-writing-a-comparison.
It'd be great if you read it, so that we could discuss in more detail the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to teaching writing if you want to understand better how you are taught and why