Self-monitoring in student writing

Self-monitoring in student writing: developing learner responsibility

Andy Cresswell / ELT Journal Volume 5413 July 2000 © Oxford University Press 2000

In giving learners control over theinitiation of feedback, student self-monitoring is a valuable way of increasing the element of autonomy in the learning of writing. However, there are also potential problems in this technique; firstly,because students may not have developed the ability to articulate their concerns; secondly, because they may choose to focus overwhelmingly on language, at the expense of the careful reviewing ofcontent and organization that makes compositions effective. To tackle these problems, a three-stage program of procedures was applied, which involved (a) raising awareness of process and product, (b)demonstrating annotations, and (c) evaluating annotations. The program was effective in developing responsible self-monitoring, in that students prepared in this way were found to be capable of articulatingtheir concerns in composing, and paying attention to content and organization, while also using the self-monitoring technique to learn language.

The author

Andy Cresswell works at the AdvancedSchool of translating and Interpreting of the University of Bologna, where he has taught oral production, applied genre analysis, and academic writing. Previously he trained teachers and coordinatedESP and advanced courses at the British Institute of Florence. He has an MA in TEFL from the University of Reading, and has also worked on the pre-sessional course there. His current researchinterests are autonomy in the learning of writing skills and the use of self-monitoring in interpreter training.
Email: cresswel@ssh-nit.unibo.it

Discourse rating tasks: a teaching tool for developingsociocultural competence Jin Sook Lee and Beverley McChesney /ELT Journal Volume 54/2 April 2000 © Oxford University Press 2000

This paper introduces a teaching activity designed to address...