PROGRAM FOR THE CERTIFICATION OF TEACHING ENGLISH AS A

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

CAN CREATIVE LANGUAGE BE USED AS A SUCCESSFUL AND MEANINGFUL

TOOL IN CLASS?

FEDERICO ARTEAGA C.

CENTRO COLOMBO AMERICANO

MANIZALES

2007
INTRODUCTION

A common concern among EFL educators is the role and process of writing in class.
Questions about whether it should be taught and how much stress should be placed on the
task differ and vary depending on a number of factors including the purpose of the class,
level of the students and the kind of expected results from the endeavor itself.

Creative writing is a broad topic that can’t be covered in full within the limits of common
classroom research. This is why, in the process of narrowing down the issue to something
more manageable in terms of time, availability and production, we will focus only on the
aspects of academic writing: why it has become the stone in the shoe of many classes and
how it can be tackled without exceeding the logistic limits that an intensive course of
English as a foreign language abiding by the Common European Framework imposes.

Due to time constrains, this research was conducted with only two groups during a cycle of
38 hours each: one group of teenage students in the last level of the English course at the
Centro Colombo Americano, who often seem reluctant to engage in writing activities
because they find them dull and time-consuming, and adult students in the preparation
course for TOEFL examination, who have to be ready to face a test on essay writing based
on integrated tasks, also at said institution.

This research will aim at answering crucial questions such as how can creative writing be
included as a meaningful and interesting activity? How can a lesson plan be distributed so
that creative writing can have a privileged spot in the attractions of the class? How should
this material be graded? Should it be graded in the first place? How soon and how much
should the students be expected to produce? Along the course of research the overall topic
and these questions suffered changes regarding the application of available methodologies
and demands of the students, striving finally for a scope on the development of creative
writing for test situations and paragraph construction.
OBJECTIVES

• To include writing as a meaningful and interesting activity in class.

• To foster in students the necessary skills to produce authentic texts based either on
free choice of topic or one assigned by teachers and examiners.

• To lay out an appropriate procedure to plan writing lessons successfully without

interfering in the normal development of the English class.

• To find ways to assess the writing process in the flow of the course, rather than
evaluating it as a consolidated result at the end of it.
JUSTIFICATION

Many previous researchers of many different matters have related their research
development to their very own process of learning on the subject which their research falls
upon. I also belong to this breed because when I remember my English lessons, I recall
seeing the new vocabulary and structures much more real and reliable when they were
down on the paper, in my own handwriting, with my own words. That’s how English
became personal for me: I noticed I could make some sort of stating by producing
reflections of my ideology and behavior in texts produced under academic observation.
This was finally a victory over empirism and the beginning of what further authors came to
call “language awareness.” As a person I strongly favor and believe in writing as one of the
noblest ways for a person to express him/herself and it is also a very flexible and easy-to-
control method of communication.

The new paradigms under which I am teaching English nowadays are different. The
Common European Framework (CEF) is a dynamic measurement scale to contrast
language achievements with time investment. It has made life easier for academic directors
all over the globe when it comes down to laying out the intensity of a new course and it
encourages teachers to pay special attention to the communicative approach, since spoken
communication is the asset of highest esteem when a person considers learning a foreign
language. I rely on the CEF as a successful tool that will take care of time management for
me while I take care of teaching the topics. But what one finds after some time under the
new rules is that you start to undergo a process of rigorous reflection, which is only to be
desired from a new working framework. And at this moment every teacher finds that nut
that’s missing in the brilliant new machinery, and these nuts are what used to work well
under the previous scheme. So why the flip change them?

The European Framework advises the application of the communicative approach which
pays systematic attention to the structural aspects of the language. This has been stated in
Colombia since once goes over the 2003 Foreign Languages evaluating rubrics from ICEFS
was released for teachers in schools in all the country. And since, classes have shifted
vigorously towards more conversational and humane classes, stigmatizing the lesson in
which paper-based activities occupied most of the class. It is true that we need more
communicative lessons, but it is also true that the rate of both short and long texts
containing orthographic and syntactic mistakes is rising dramatically. Students are now
prompted to concentrate only on getting the message across above all, this is perfectly ok;
but this simple exercise has a follow-up in which the teacher explains the mistakes students
have made and corrections are given. Many times this follow-up doesn’t occur. Sometimes
because the moment of the mistake and that of the correction are too far apart or maybe
because the teacher notices interest is going down and decides to change the activity to
keep the class moving.

One way to give the framework a hand is to include in lessons new approaches to make
grammar, syntax and orthography a lively part of a class that can be wonderfully well
adapted within the communicative approach. Writing is perhaps the most classical way of
celebrating language and, despite common belief, there are countless ways in which this
practice can re-invent itself.

Then again, there is the undeniable truth that writing is indeed a time-consuming activity. If
this particular activity is to be carried out correctly in order to get the results you expect
(meaning, coherence, main idea and supporting ideas, appropriateness of language,
creativity, wording, phrasing and paraphrasing), it can’t occur under tight time constrains. A
way has to be found to distribute the tasks over the course, keep students interested in the
activity and assess the ongoing writing as it happens.

Under my students’ demands, my research varied critically as I found out that the problem
had been the description of Creative Writing all along. The very definition of the practice
and the outspokenness of the class’ needs pointed a way towards academic writing as the
main focus of my work and developing a sense of belonging for language as a background
motif. This latter aspect of the research that took place made for enough fuel to keep a
group interested and committed from beginning to end.

As a second-language speaker I consider I have a fair domain of the tongue since I have
devoted some time to make Universal English sound like My English; and in my personal
case, writing played an important role –still does- in what “Language Awareness” and
confidence concerns if it comes down to both written and spoken communication as well as
any other means.

All over the world, language schools and institutes are fostering and sponsoring writing
events that occur from the intimacy of the classroom to the broadness and equality of the
Internet. Colombian students, as well as most Central-American countries, have in their
backgrounds a culture of the ease of words, quickness of answer and resourcefulness in
vocabulary.

This research is important for me because it is a stepping stone on my way to become a

successful English Language Teaching consultant. I see that through this work I can come
to prove in a scientific –albeit small- manner that writing can and should be one of the
essential issues dealt with in class while following the directions of the CEF.
LITERATURE REVIEW

The problem of action research is the same problem one faces when choosing a writing
topic, I came to discover on the course of my work. The issue of why Creative Writing isn’t
included in lesson plans as often as it should be may very well derive from the lack of
clarity in defining what Creative Writing is and isn’t. “Creative writing is a term used to
distinguish certain imaginative or different types of writing from technical writing. The lack
of specificity of the term is partly intentional, designed to make the process of writing
accessible to everyone (of all ages) and to ensure that non-traditional, or traditionally low-
status writing (for example, writing by marginalized social groups, experimental writing,
genre fiction) is not excluded from academic consideration or dismissed as trivial or
insignificant.” (Wikipedia)

This became the first issue to deal with but the answer came soon enough. Centro Colombo
Americano has, by tradition, been an EFL center. Therefore the distinctions among
technical, professional and journalistic writing were discarded since the general classes at
the institution are not designed observing the requirements of English for Specific
Purposes; so, in an EFL environment what comes in the handiest is the focus on academic
writing, which is designed and taught to be understood by virtually any reader of the
language, although its audience, tone purpose are generally specific (Oshima & Hogue,
1999).

Personally, I am much more of an emotional person than what I seem to be, so my readings
on the field took me where a person’s values and beliefs can be expressed free of critical
correction and/or judgment. A first idea was that of journal-keeping as being a tool used
broadly and has proved successful in many different communities. Now when working with
journals, there are mainly two streams it can go down: the personal and intimate journal
that no one but the writer is entitled to see (category much closer to the diary genre) and the
technical book in which routine occurrences are recorded for keeping the normal flow of
things around (this is much kith and kin with the logs). As an academic experience, the
journal must be understood as a means for the learner express confidently and freely his/her
reflections on his language study process and also as a prompter of progress, an ongoing
work that needs checking and correcting on a periodical basis. In other words, “… (The
diary) is a reconstruction of experiences and, like the diary, has both objective and
subjective dimensions, but unlike diaries, the writer is (or becomes) aware of the difference.
The journal as a 'service book' is implicitly a book that someone returns to. It serves
purposes beyond recording events and pouring out thoughts and feelings... Like the diary,
the journal is a place to 'let it all out'. But the journal is also a place for making sense of
what is out... The journal is a working document.” (Marie Louise Holly, 1989:20)
But then the problem was keeping adult students with full-time jobs interested and engaged
in the task of keeping a journal when they wanted to be trained to take an examination that
might decide on a grant or a scholarship. And what worried me through the process was
that, because the teenage students had been taught mostly within the CEF and the
communicative approach, problems in syntax, context, grammar and spelling were overly
frequent. This has been a concern behooving EFL teachers for some time now. Given the
fact that most EFL teachers are from the same region the student is from, they tend to be
more lax and permissive and L1 intrusions in the target language, allowing for
understatements in examinations and a sense of unspoken understanding of a culture of the
error between educators and learners; but these seemingly light slips in language usage
might end up in serious miscommunication when the student has the real opportunity to
speak the language with a native. That, on one hand; on the other hand, students from the
preparation-for-TOEFL course were mostly adults who hadn’t practiced the language inside
a classroom in many years; it was difficult to make the idea of keeping a journal sound
appealing. By this time they are interested in more comprehensive methods and exercises
and activities that may produce tangible results in a logical interval.

To attend both needs: that of the teenagers who need to shape up their coherence, cohesion
and spelling and that of the TOEFL students who need to be in capacity of delivering
authentic texts under requirement, shorter writing tasks took precedence over those that,
despite rewarding and lasting, can become lengthy and mechanic during such a short cycle.
So the new interest shifted towards the construction of a minimal structure in the realm of a
kind of writing to be defined as creative: a paragraph.

“A paragraph is a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences

develops one main idea. A paragraph can be as short as one sentence or as long as ten
sentences. The number of sentences is unimportant; however the paragraph should be long
enough to develop the main idea clearly.” (Oshima and Hogue, 1999: 16 op.cit.) The
writing of a paragraph is a task that can be easily handled as the main function seen in a
class or as an activity that will be constantly monitored by teacher and students. The one
thing that remains true from the guidelines to present a research paper to writing a three-
hundred-word examination essay is that writing is not a product, it is a process and as such,
it is always sensitive to changes and improvements. Students must be aware of this in every
case where writing is involved, authors agree unanimously. And it is this same reflection
what must outline the most appropriate evaluating system. It is easy to fall back on the
assumption that evaluating a process by a single product is more than unfair; but this
doesn’t mean that a process of control should not be kept on the entire course. Assessing
the drafts and results of writing tasks means paying attention to the understanding that must
be acquired of spelling in English, different from Spanish for not being a phonetic language
(that is, it is not read the way it appears written). It also involves checking the usage of
punctuation (critical when academic writing is addressed) and layout. Of course, all this
assessing is cemented on the key concepts that grammar and vocabulary issues are dealt
with separately from the writing process. In order to make this checking more successful,
an amount of pre-writing activities and disciplines are recommended to be built from inside
the class itself like learner strategies -metacognitive aspects of language learning-, note
taking, paraphrasing, and summarizing (Gear & Gear, 2006).
METHODOLOGY

Classroom research occurred in two classes simultaneously and data collection was made
with colleague teachers by means of a survey and with students through informal
conversation either in class-time or out of the classroom environment.

A survey (see attachment 1) was applied to twenty-two teachers on the topic of reading and
writing habits. The survey shed light on the following issues:

1. Fifteen teachers use English on a weekly basis for personal purposes such as lists
and personal reminders. The remaining teachers use it every fifteen days or so.

2. Six teachers allegedly read five books in L2 a year, twelve more read one or less
and the others turn over magazine articles and short stories when reading is the
activity.

3. Eighteen teachers answered they assign at least one creative writing task daily in
their classes, three do it weekly and one affirms not assigning such tasks.

4. All teachers advise their students to engage in extensive reading whether for
language exposure, for leisure or lexicon building.

5. Ten teachers answered they bring authentic literary material into class and share it
with their students at least once every cycle. Five more said to do it weekly and
seven answered they do not do it.

6. Out of ten tricky English words, sixteen teachers knew the meaning for seven of the
words, three knew only four, two answered they were familiar to eight words and
only one got nine of the words.

In class observation the situation is quite another, for one has to make sure to attend a class
that will involve some writing in the plan the teacher has prepared for said day. The
following is an activity observed in the last level of the Upper-Intermediate cycles
comprising eight students whose ages ranged from thirteen to sixteen years old.

• The teacher starts by asking Ss what they are going to do after class and hears all
answers prioritizing meaning over accuracy.

• Through a follow-up grammar correction the topic of the class is brought up and the
teacher goes over the future forms of English language.

(Simple future –modal verb ‘will’ used fro recently made decisions and predictions,
‘going to’ structure used for plans and intentions-. Future continuous –structure ‘Be
 + going to’ used to describe actions in progress at a specific moment in the future-.
Future perfect –‘will have + participle’ for actions brought to an end by a specific
moment in the future-.)

• Ss are asked the following question: “if you were given the chance to choose one of
your colleagues as your personal English language consultant, who would you
choose?”

• Then Ss are asked to write an entire notebook page about their plans for the coming
weekend using, of course, the tenses studied.

• Ss carry out the activity addressing their chosen consultant for grammar and
vocabulary clarifications and resorting to the teacher as last aid.

• Ss do peer correction.

• The time that every student needs to invest in his/her own piece of creative writing
varies depending on how successful the interaction between consultant and
consulter is.

• The activity takes forty-five minutes.

Another method used to gather information about regular usage of writing in the class was
reported by a co-worker who applied an activity that led to authentic production in her
class.

• The class objective was the general practice of speaking connectors and linking
expressions (intermediate level).

• The teacher starts by giving an overall explanation of the topic and its functioning
expressions (nevertheless, however, although, etc.) and then proceeds to give every
student a starting sentence (“It had been clear all night when, suddenly, it started to
rain…”)

• Ss write two coherent and sequential sentences to develop the idea the starting
phrase proposes.

• Every student gives then the growing story to a partner who has to start by
completing the idea the way the linking expression his colleague has used suggests.

• After the fifth swap, the student has to put a conclusive end to the story.

• Stories were read aloud and peers criticized each other’s work in a constructive
manner.
ANALYSIS

From the survey that the twenty-two teachers took and the results, different aspects come
clean as relevant to action research on how to include Creative Writing as a meaningful tool
in class.

The first observation I made about the survey is how dissimilar the opinions on what
creative writing is are. The assumption that words put together in a sentence to illustrate a
structure seen in class is authentic writing is a dangerous one, and it is so because the
process of mechanical repetition of a tense belongs more to the field of drilling, an activity
useful in class when the teacher needs to encourage weak students and have solid grounds
to praise them for their effort and progress. It is necessary to understand that Creative
Writing in academic surroundings is the practice of language learning where the student has
a stock of vocabulary at his/her disposal to conjugate within appropriate grammatical
relationships to, first, convey meaning and second, express an educated point of view on a
topic under discussion in class or during examination.

Another important fact that came to my attention during the analysis of data collected
through the interview was the question ‘is a language teacher necessarily a language user?’
Ideally, yes. But practically teaching can become just an occupation like many others in
which, due to commodity or distancing from the studying field on the field of study,
knowledge can become static and lose the appeal based on the repetition of topics within a
lesson, lesson within levels, levels within cycles and cycles within semesters. It is of the
essence, for a teacher to stay motivated in his field, to have a healthy rotation throughout all
possible levels the institution curriculum encompasses. Teachers, by acting as models of the
desirable language in the class, miss the opportunity to make target language a part of their
natural process of communication.

The survey, yet superficial, offers an insight of an English teaching program that although it
moves forward, could do much better if teachers were constantly prompted and encouraged
to become more successful language users. Fortunately, Centro Colombo Americano offers
all these possibilities for teachers. But, just like we tell our students, if you really want to
learn it, you have to learn to want it. Writing proper reports on class development,
evaluating criteria and general concerns should become a normal practice in the institution
aiming at turning writing into a natural process for all those involved in English teaching.
This is a productive skill that enriches the user either by receiving it (reading somebody
else’s written messages) or by administering it (using it as a means to an end in class and
making the production of the text an end in itself).

From the exercise carried out with the upper-intermediate students a conclusion drawn is
that young students respond much better to peer assessment rather than to peer correction.
In the ongoing task of writing, teenagers will naturally turn to their partners first to try and
work out their doubts and then to the teacher. They believe in their classmates as well as
they look up to the teacher. Peer assessment and teacher-controlled correction (be it by
footnotes, margin comments, or personal feedback) is a good combination to face a writing
task with a teenage class.

They fall much more naturally on L1 translation and, ironically, also become the quickest
learners to pick up on idioms, slang and humor. Their massive exposure to the language
nowadays is something that has long been discussed so it becomes obvious why teenagers
feel the need and are encouraged to understand and use properly expressions they come
across on television programs, videogames and websites. This is the reason why the writing
task with teenagers has to be much more uncompromising than it should be with adults.
Rules of academic writing would apply only in the sense that a structure seen in class is to
be practiced by written means. Other than that, the teacher’s ability to negotiate on the
seriousness of the tone (something sine qua non of academic writing) will play a part in
catching the attention of the students and focusing on an activity that is usually considered
boring, time-consuming and meaningless. When undertaking such an activity it is very
important to offer logistic support (teacher’s role goes from aid to prompter and corrector),
for it is when teenagers hesitate about their ability when they are the most prone to
disengage entirely from the whole exercise.
PLAN OF ACTION

Preparing students for examination is something that I have had the opportunity to work on
twice. Once for the ICFES test and now for the TOEFL test and the measurements to be
taken are very different. In the ICFES case, the student has to be trained mostly in getting
familiar with the different types of question that might, in the end, make up for a realistic
simulation of a language problem. In the case of the TOEFL test, being acquainted with the
type of questions is one of the preliminary advices given by most preparation books, but it
is not considered one of the supporting skills that may ultimately lead to success in the
exam. Also, in the national examination, writing is not considered among the gradable
parameters of the test due to the answer format it uses; whereas the TOEFL examination,
from the times of its paper-based test form to the new and improved Internet-based form
has paid automatic attention to essay-writing as one of the most important skills a person
has to develop if s/he wishes to achieve proficiency in the language.

So, due to the time restrictions that make it impossible to apply a large-scale writing project
with groups in intensive schedules and considering the integrated task from the TOEFL
examination in which the testee first reads a text dealing with an academic subject, then
listens to complementary material on the same topic hat is not a repetition of such but rather
an example or a demonstration of said issue, finally has to write a 250/300-word-long essay
discussing the same topic but taking it from a question posed at the end of the previous
listening; the construction of a paragraph appeared to be a feasible thing to try with
students.

The first step was consulting the students about their feelings towards writing and, not
surprisingly, their concerns were very much interrelated and referred to lack of vocabulary,
usage of linking expressions and speech connectors that differ substantially from those in
Spanish (such is the case of prepositions) and grammar doubts that had been somewhat
fossilized over the time they had spent without formal contact with the language.

It was necessary then to divide the time in the lessons in such a way that all these concerns
could be addressed properly. So vocabulary exercises were administered in which students
were introduced to the concept of language corpora and synonym families. The different
degrees of synonymy were discussed and questions were cleared out about case-specific
expressions (e.g. at the hospital/in the hospital, wonderful/superb, in fact/indeed, etc.). All
vocabulary exercises and activities aimed, primarily at the immediate goal of retrieving all
the lexicon stock they had acquired throughout their entire learning process and putting it
all to work, for it is evident that the knowledge that is not used, will eventually go to waste.

At the same time, students were introduced to the steps for pre-writing and writing an
academic paragraph as follows:
• Choosing and narrowing down the topic: When asked what they would like to
write about, students invariably selected topics of broad coverage such as
entertainment, or television or environment. However, dealing with such issues in a
single paragraph is nothing near academic writing, where a paragraph is expected to
have a main idea and supporting sentences that develop the same idea with
completeness. Thus, a paragraph of maximum ten sentences cannot elaborate on all
the aspects of something as broad as ‘environment,’ so students are asked to narrow
it down at least four times, making it more and more specific within the boundaries
of the topic itself. So ‘entertainment’ becomes ‘using videogames with elder citizens
in retirement homes as means of therapy.’ ‘Television’ evolved into ‘“Padres e
hijos,” ten years on air and no script’ and so on.

• Brainstorming and listing: Students are then asked to place their chosen topic at
the top of a piece of paper and start listing down all sorts of words, expressions,
sentences, questions and guidelines their topic suggests. At this point they are not
overly encouraged to pay attention to grammar and spelling, but only to put their
thoughts down on the paper so that they become visible and accessible for them. A
second part of the listing task is that students stop and read their lists; cross out
those ideas that seem redundant and classify the remaining pegs in lists of common
concern and from these sub-lists they will circle or underline the expression or
phrase that seems to concentrate the main idea of the sub-list.

• Free writing: At this point it is important to do some pre-writing to make sure the
student is satisfied with the topic s/he has chosen. Free writing is an exercise in
which the subject writes the title topic at the top of the page and starts writing about
it. Most of it results in paraphrasing, but there are two aspects of great importance in
the task. First, never lose sight of the main topic (which is why it is placed on the
paper as a title) and second, keep the pencil moving. Again, students are told not to
pay overly attention to grammar and spelling as at this point the goal is to get ideas
out in a more or less complete, sequential and coherent way (as opposed to listing).
There is not much place for reflection in this section of the process, but free writing
helps the writer find a focus for their writing piece or show that this is not a topic
s/he is prepared to elaborate on in an academic paragraph.

• Clustering: Once the free writing has been done, most likely a new ‘story line’ may
emerge from the resulting text that can be even more specific (which will help in the
elaboration of the text) or more personal as to the familiarity the student can have
with the topic (which will also help in the elaboration of the text). Clustering is
organizing the resulting vocabulary and ideas from the free writing step in mind
maps: a big bubble placed in the middle of a sheet contains the selected topic and
smaller bubbles around it contain supporting ideas about the main one. Finally,
 satellite bubbles are placed around the supporting ideas illustrating specific details
or pieces of information that have to be mentioned in the course of the paragraph.

• Writing a topic sentence: Probably the most important part of a paragraph and the
most difficult to get right is the topic sentence. This is a sentence that specifically
outlines what the paragraph is going to be about. Students have to be taught that a
good topic sentence is formed by two elements: the topic and the controlling idea.
The topic being a noun or a noun phrase which illustrates the ‘thing’ we are
discussing, and the controlling idea is what we want to say about the topic (usually
contains the verb or verbal phrase of the sentence). It is important to remember that
the topic sentence can be found at the beginning of the text, at the end of it, if it
works as a way of concluding the text, or in both places (what’s called a ‘sandwich’
topic sentence), used mainly when the paragraph is short and sentences are mostly
long-winded.

• Sub-listing: Closing the pre-writing task one finds sub-listing as an excellent

method to outline everything that will be mentioned in the text. The topic is placed
at the top of the page and under it the topic sentence is found. After that once
retrieves information from the clustering section and form short sub-lists in which
the supporting ideas found around the topic are the guidelines for supporting
sentences in the paragraph, and the satellite details around the supporting ideas will
become supporting details to complement and season the writing.

This is the end of the mechanics of organizing a successful academic paragraph, but these
are only the pre-writing steps. Now comes the first draft, in which the student writes a
paragraph paying exclusive attention to the layout of ideas in the text, making sure that
topic sentence and supporting sentences are found in sequential order and a concluding
sentence is found at the end of the paragraph. On the second draft students will clear out the
spelling and appropriateness of vocabulary, task for which they have been trained through
exercises of synonymy and language corpora and resorting to idiomatic expressions that
don’t strive for slang since it is not well-appreciated in academic writing. Finally, on the
third and final draft the students check on their usage of grammar and punctuation.

It is important to remember that writing (whether creative, academic, technical, journalistic

or professional) is never a finished product; it is always a process; a thing susceptible to
change and improvement.

Students from the TOEFL preparation class were interested and committed with the activity
and were willing to participate in all the steps.

Now, what about the grading? These exercises are meant to be assessed rather than
evaluated if one is to enforce the methodology of writing as a process and not as a product.
What was found to be the best tool to keep constant tabs on the progress of students’ work
was correction via e-mail and class discussion (see attachment 2). Explanatory notes were
sent back to the students attached to their original text.
CONCLUSIONS

Considering the starting point was a concern as to how to find a way to make Creative
Language a meaningful and successful tool to be included in the class it is now time to go
over the process this far.

The first step was to use the review of appropriate literature in order to achieve a solid
definition of creative writing and it was right here where the first and major change took
place because there is no real definition for what Creative Language can get to be. Thus, a
shift for academic writing was adopted and it became the main focus of the action
research..

It was discovered through the process that writing is a process that demands permanent
assessment instead of post-facto evaluation. In this regard the researchable question about
the measurement of the process was answered by a qualitative appreciation of the students’
progress. However, in the case of students in preparation for the TOEFL examination, the
task was always undertaken with a forewarning that the steps followed for the successful
construction of an academic paragraph are also a matter of personal commitment and it is
the autonomous practice of such directions what will ultimately lead them to a conscious
usage of the time they have available under rigorous test conditions. Also, a satisfying
degree of consciousness was raised towards the fact that WRITING IS NOT A PRODUCT,
IT IS AN ONGOING PROCESS.

In the case of teenage students, encouraging academic writing can be overly time-
consuming and divert the topics of the lessons. Directed writing within uncompromising
parameters seems to be a better solution with this kind of classes.

One important observation derived from this is that Creative Writing can be implemented
with practically all sorts of groups, levels, and ages, but prior research about acquired skills
and those yet-to-be-acquired must be done within the curriculum and syllabus of the
institution in which it is going to be applied.

An interesting consideration that arose from the research is that through the process new
guidelines were found to re-formulate the structure of the TOEFL preparation course at
Centro Colombo Americano, so far divided in grammar, listening and speaking for the first
cycle and speaking, reading and writing for the second. It would be worth to reflect on how
it could be shifted, to, let’s say, structural reviews during the first cycle (massive re-
inforcement of the four basic skills of the language), and supporting skills and integrated
tasks for the second cycle.
Attachment 1

A reflection on language learning

As teachers, we’re probable the students with the highest degree of target language
exposure in the EFL world. Having said this, there arises an interest in getting an insight of
these successful learners’ study habits, now concerned with those of writing and its
processes. Please answer these brief questions as precisely as possible, since they will be
valuable information in the uncharted field of Action Research.

1. How often do you use writing in L2 for personal purposes (letters, notes to self, e-
mails, diary entries, shopping lists, etc.)?
a. Everyday.
b. Every week.
c. Every month.
d. Once in a blue moon.
e. Other:______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

2. How many books in L2 do you read in a year?

a. One or less.
b. Five.
c. Ten.
d. Twenty.
e. Other: ____________________________________________________________

3. How often do you assign creative writing tasks in your English class?
a. At least once every class.
b. At least once every week.
c. At least once every level.
d. Creative what?
e. Other: ____________________________________________________________

4. Do you recommend that your students read in L2 on a regular basis?

a. Yes.

b. No.
5. If your answer to #4 was yes, then what reasons do you give your students to do it?
a. For language exposure.
b. For lexicon building.
c. To check spelling.
d. For leisure.
e. Other: ___________________________________________________________

6. Considering that you are an EFL-trained speaker and writer, how good do you
consider your command of English when it comes down to writing?
a. Above average.
b. Average.
c. Below average.
d. Poor.
e. Other: ____________________________________________________________

7. How often do you bring into your class an extract of literary material different from
the text book and read it aloud for your students?
a. At least once every class.
b. At least once every week.
c. At least once every level.
d. Never.
e. Other: _____________________________________________________________

8. Contrasting it with your own, how good do you consider your peer learners’ (your
students’) writing skills?
a. Excellent.
b. Good.
c. Fair.
d. Poor
e. Other: _____________________________________________________________

9. Are you familiar with these words? Circle those terms which meaning you know
without looking them up.
a. Penmanship. i. Manslaughter.
b. Tittle. j. Woe.
c. Goiter.
d. Hullabaloo
e. Quintessence.
f. Foal.
g. Diasporican.
h. Awe.
 10. Which of the following tenses and structures do you find most…? Match your
answers with a line.

Most practical Simple Present

Most literary Passive Voice

Most complicated Present Perfect

Most beautiful Imperatives

Most common Conditionals

11. Finally, if you had to describe your English learning process in one uncompromising
sentence, what would you say?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________
Attachment 2

A bitter defeat for Chávez

In South America clearly there are two different approaches to the way of leading a country.
There is the line that follows a few presidents that are in the same page with the United
State government, and there is the other line where you can find the government themselves
called social government. Most of the latin american governments are social governments
this is the case in Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil the most representatives countries in this
line, on the other line the main ally of the United States is the Colombian government.

There are constant debates between one side and the other one, but the most representative
social government in the region is leaded by Hugo Chavez who is always looking for
different spaces to talk about how the american politic is wrong and how that kind of
leadership is making the world a worse place to live specially if it happens you live in a
developing country. That kind of interventions mean a lot of publicity and the Venezolan
President is itself the center of discussions all around the world.

Recently, president Bush visited latin america, but the visit was held in friend countries like
Brazil and Colombia. At the same time Chavez was visiting another countries in the region
and the speech this time was about the promises always made for american presidents, that
kind of promises that never become an action instead the way Chavez himself was doing
politics and making deals with governments in the region for comercial treats related
specially with oil and health care provided for Venezuela to the other countries.

Now a day the aggressive speech from both sides is calm, but it seems America is beating
the opposite side but for Colombia the situation is not that clear because although the
colombian government has the public support of american government the new scandal of
the relationship between paramilitar and people in the government is making things harder
and harder each day.

 A circumstantial complement is any explanatory phrase indicating the time, the

place, the mode or the frequency with which an action is performed. They are
commonly found at the end of a sentence and therefore, if they are to be placed at
the beginning of a sentence, a comma should be used. “… In South America,…”
 Position of adverbs in a sentence is difficult. But, if the combination is:
circumstantial complement and an adverbs, the choice is clear: the adverb has less
 words, this means it is more independent and doesn’t need to attach itself to the verb
phrase the way a complement would. Thus, the advised opening sentence should
read “… Clearly, in South America, there are two different approaches to the way of
leading a country: …” Colon is needed since you immediately list said ways.
 You have to be careful with the wording in a sentence. You are suggesting there
exists a line that follows presidents, when in fact you mean that the presidents
follow the line. “…There is a line followed by some presidents…”
 Themselves called: Self-denominated.
 Nationalities, languages, months and days start with a capital letter: Monday,
Spanish, Latin American.
 Lead, participle: lead.
 Punctuation. Although the general idea of the excerpt is clear, lack of commas and
semicolons can lead to confusion in the reader. You start with a noun phrase, it
should be separated with a comma. “,…who is always looking for different spaces
to talk about how the american politic is wrong and how that kind of leadership is
making the world a worse place to live; especially if you happen to live in a
developing country. …”
 Nowadays.
 “But” introduces a contrasting idea, a comma used after it is recommended.
 After government a comma is needed to show the relationship between the two
ideas.
 Paramilitary.
Attachment 3

Religion, Benedict XVI.

THE POPE’S "HOLLY WAR"

By Natalia Estrada

The world is full of religions and one of the powerfull is the catholic church, it got a lot of
power during the medioevo period, when it could almost control people’s minds getting
money and power. The situation has changed in a lot of places over the world and new
religions have started, why? That’s an interesting question, because the world needed to
evolution, and if something like religion controls people minds it won’t ever happen.
But already with the change the world has experimented, Catholicism keeps been the main
religion in a lot of countries, and its representant is the Pope Benedict XVI, who became to
be the Pope after Pope Joan Paul II, the one who was on it position during more than 30
years. But what does it mean, having a new Pope on power? It is a new point of view of
catholic and other religions. He has the challenge of increase or least mantain the people
who already believe in the religion he is leading.
At this moment of history it is not that easy, as it was said before, the world is changing and
people’s minds as well, so now, it could be said that some people is thinking by itself. And
realizing that God’s conception is something bigger than always has been thought.

 Adjective ending in suffix ‘ful’ never take double L at the end: beautiful, wonderful,
POWERFUL.

 Middle Ages. Adjective: medieval.

 Words ending in suffix ‘tion’ are regularly Nouns: Evolution, Constitution. The verb
is ‘evolve.’

 Adverbs of time and frequency in perfect tenses usually take their place between
auxiliaries and main verbs. Thus “But already with the change the world has
experimented” becomes “But, with the change the world has already
experimented…”
 Every time the verb “keep” is used as a synonym of “continue,” the following verb
must be combined in gerund: …keeps being…. Or …keeps on being…

 Representative.
 “Become” means to get to be; therefore the verb “to be” is unnecessary. “…Who
became the Pope after John Paul II…”

 Used for job and occupations: “In this position.” “in power.”

 Religion: Catholicism

 After the preposition “of” every verbs used as such (and not as a noun, for example)
must be combined in its gerund form. Thus, “…He has the challenge of increase or
least mantain the people …” should be “…he has the challenge of increasing or, at
least, maintaining…”
 Coherence problem: “…the world is changing and people’s minds as well…”
should be “…the world is changing and so are people’s minds…”

 The word “people” should always be treated as plural (some people are thinking by
themselves). And the verb “think” is rarely a dynamic action, hence it is not
commonly used in its gerund form unless it means “to consider.” (Suggested: Some
people are starting to think by themselves)
BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Oshima A. & Hogue A., (1999) Writing academic English. White Plains, NY:
Pearson.

• Wikipedia donor (2007) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Creative Writing. June
14, 2007. www.wikipedia.com

• Smith M., (1999, 2006), 'Keeping a learning journal', the encyclopaedia of informal
education. June 06, 2007. www.infed.org/research/keeping_a_journal.htm. Last
updated: May 07, 2006.

• Holly M.L., (1989) Writing to Grow. Keeping a personal-professional journal,

Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann

• Gear J. & Gear R., (2006) Cambridge preparation for the TOEFL test. New York,
NY: Cambridge.

• Harmer J., (2001) The practice of English language teaching. Essex, England:
Pearson.