Continuing on from my previous posts about language learners and learning strategies, here are some writing strategies inspired by “Learning Strategies in Foreign and Second Language Classrooms: The Role of Learner Strategies” by Ernesto Macaro
- Preperation: brain storm relevant vocabulary and phrases to the topic.
- Get in the right frame of mind and environment: Don’t let your anxiety or worries block your writing, work collaboratively with a friend, make sure you are in a quiet and clean study space.
- Resources: have a dictionary, textbook and any other relevant resources on hand.
- Recombining: construct meaningful sentences by combining previously learnt ‘chunks’.
- Generating via translation: use your native tongue when stuck for a word or phrase.
- Avoidance: Recognising not to write something as you predict difficulties and lack of success. (Don’t make it too hard for yourself!)
- Common-sense monitoring: Does it make sense with regard to the topic and your understanding of the world?
- Context monitoring: Is it relevant?
- Coherence monitoring: Does it make sense with the rest of the text?
- Auditory monitoring: Does it sound right if you read aloud?
- Visual monitoring: Does is look right when you read it?
- Back translating: Does it make sense if you translate it back to your native language?
- Personalised monitoring: Reminding yourself of the common mistakes you make and learning to avoid them.
- Evaluating decisions: Evaluating wether you have used the right vocabulary, grammar structure, honorifics, etc.
- Collaborative monitoring strategies: Getting your work check by another.
What are your strategies for writing in Korean or another foreign language?
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I will make a comment about only 5. Translation is a very poor way of learning languages. It slows you down and puts in the way a barrier between a perception or thought and the target language. MUCH better to formulate, at the start for e.g., simple sentences as you walk around your house, e.g. my kitchen has a table and 2 chairs. The chairs are brown. On the table is a vase of flowers….. This way you are putting exercising your perception, Korean, and you are under a little pressure as you vary the sentences ( not repeat mindlessly)
Enjoy!
Thanks for your comment!
I agree with you, relying on translating can be dangerous and time-consuming. The only time I’d use it is if I was stuck for a word or a phrase perhaps. ^^