8. WRITTEN FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

APPROXIMATION, MATURING AND IMPROVEMENT

OF THE READING AND WRITING PROCESSES.
READING COMPREHENSION: TECHNIQUES OF
GLOBAL AND SPECIFIC COMPREHENSION FOR
WRITTEN TEXTS. WRITING: FROM
INTERPRETATION TO PRODUCTION

1. INTRODUCTION
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH: communication and
interaction with a functional dimension in which all the
skills are integrated.
RECEPTIVE SKILLS: reading and listening skills
PRODUCTIVE SKILLS: speaking and writing skills.
In this topic: written language skills.
Order of March, of the Andalusian goverment.;Processes
of comprehension and expression of written
texts,analysing the differences between the two
processes and studying in depth the stages of the
teaching process.

1. WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Introduction of the Area ,Annex I, Order of march, states
that:
the area of Foreign Language aims at preparing persons
to use the foreign language to understand, speak, talk,
read and write from an active and practical approach.
Skills in an integrated way
Communicative competence The learning of linguistic
skills aims at achieving an effective oral and written
communicative competence in meaningful social
contexts that enables students to express themselves
with progressive effectiveness and accuracy

Contents into four blocks, the same as Crown Decree

126/2014.
EXPLANATION OF WRITTEN COMMUNICATION.

Language is a complex cognitive skill.

Three stages in the reading comprehension process:

1. Perception: focus on graphemes to get meanings.
2. Analysis: the sense of the text is reconstructed.
3. Use: information is drawn up, new schemes are
created.


1.
2.

Stages in the process of written production:

Construction: communicative intention.
Transformation: grammatical rules are applied in
order to transform the intentions into a formal message
3. Performance: the message is physically expresed.
WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE
-DIFFERENCES(Madrid and Mclaren)

Permanence: written text is permanent. Oral language

vanishes.

Processing time: the receiver has greater time to

process the information.

 Distance: writer and reader are in different contexts.

Orthography.It is more difficult to interpret written
language than oral language.
Complexity. Written language has more complex
sentences than spoken language.
Vocabulary.Written lexical register is more complex.
Formality. Written language use conventions.

2. APPROXIMATION,MATURING AND IMPROVEMENT

OF THE READING AND WRITING PROCESSES
There are two types of methods to teach reading and
writing:
1. Synthetic methods :start from the smallest
elements(graphemes or phonemes).
2. Analytical methods: start from meaningful units (words
or sentences9
Due to the characteristics of English, we use the global
method (word method)

The word method involves teaching spelling, meaning

and pronunciation at the same time, paying attention to
the context.

 In the early stages, we work at word level. We introduce

the vocabulary by means of flashcards. Some games
are bingo, snap or dominoes.
In further stages, we will carry on working on writing by a
series of gradual activities.
Spelling: crosswords, bingo, anagrams hangman,
scrabble,
Word level: hide &seek,snap, noughts and crosses,
word creation
Sentence level: join with arrows, fill in the bubbles,
order sentences..
Importance of the organization of the vocabulary for
developing autonomy (graphical and pictorial
dictionaries)

3. READING COMPREHENSION: TECHNIQUES OF

GLOBAL AND SPECIFIC COMPREHENSION OF
WRITTEN TEXTS
3.1. TYPES OF READING
Two different ways: reading aloud (storytelling) or reading
silently (scanning, skimming, intensive and extensive)
Scanning: search specific information within a text:
looking for dates, numbers, times
Skimming: global impression of the content of the text:
reading bold letter, titles
Intensive reading: focuses on linguistic and content
accuracy.
Extensive reading: grasping a general understanding
of the text.

3.2.STEPS IN READING TASKS

Pre-reading tasks: previous knowledge,the situational context and

basic vocabulary.
While-reading tasks:global or specific information.
Post-reading or subsequent activities: analyse more deeply any
aspect of the text.
3.3. TYPES OF TEXTS:
Authentic texts:not adapted or modified.
Pedagogic texts: especially written for the language classroom.
Adapted texts or graded readers: very useful for the creatin or
reading habits.
Crown Decree establishes promotion of reading as a
compulsory part in our daily practice in its article 9, point 2.

Order of March of the Andalusian government

establishes: Reading constitues a fundamental factor
for the development of the basic competences. The
school when organizing its teaching practice, must
guarantee the inclusion of a daily period devoted to
reading, not shorter than thirty minutes, in all grades
of the stage
To achieve this aim, we use the reading corner and
reading time in our class. In this sense is very Euseful
new technologies.Example: Oxford Reading Tree.
The devepment of comprehension is priority in a
communicative approach and it is a starting point to get
students involved in reading.
Different activities to work on reading comprehension
are:

 Playing games: dominoes, snap, bingo, odd-one-out,

spot the diference
Reading words and to rearrange them to make
sentences.
Matching two halves of a sentence.
Using vocabulary prompts cards to make sentences.
Reading and ticking a chart to make sentences.
Matching pictures to speech bubbles.
Sequencing.
Checking written statements.

4. WRITTEN PRODUCTION:FROM INTERPRETATION TO

PRODUCTION
4.1. WRITTEN PRODUCTION
It is the most difficult skill.
Provide activities with functional use.
Entertaining activities.
At first stages, students will write very little. Activities:
anagrams, crosswords, matching pairs, classifying
At word level: hide and seek, nought and crosses,
personal dictionaries, matching labels.
At sentence level: speech labels, answering questions..

4.2. APPROACHES

1.
2.
3.

PRODUCT APPROACH: parallel writing(imitation of

models).A model is analised and the imitation takes
place.It is very easy to follow but no good texts are
produced.
PROCESS APPROACH: process followed to write a
text in the mother tongue.
Activities can be classified into the following types:
Personal writing
Purposeful writing: real purpose ( funtional, personal,
imaginative)
Writing prompts:

4.3. USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOLGIES
Wonderful tools to work on writing.
Internet offers many possibilities: find texts for reading,
find reading-related activities, practice writing, download
software.
Other advantage is dictionaries with automatically
correct spelling mistakes.
Helvia platform: create their own class website or blogs.

4.4 .PORTFOLIO
Common European Framework or Reference for
Languages provide with portfolios for their students to
keep examples of their written work over a period of time
It has three parts. Language biography (students reflect
on their abilities), language passport (what languages
they can speak and how well), dossier (students keeps
examples of their projects, reports)
Didactic implications: include the four skills, priority to
receptive and oral skills, facilitating environment,
promote co-operation, functional and meaningful
communication, self-evaluation