The funny thing about writing is that we cannot actually teach writing. We cannot get into the head of the writer. Still, we can guide our students indirectly.

How important are various language skills to a man in the street? Of course it depends on their work, background and interests. Still, I think most people would agree that reading, speaking and listening are more used than writing in our everyday lives.

If the argument above is true, we may conclude that the importance of writing is overrated in schools. Nevertheless, the matter is not at all a simple one. There are many new ideas that have been applied in teaching writing over the last 20 years thanks to CLT principles and writing skills have always been valued highly.

Some CLT principles to be followed in teaching writing

1. Students are made to write minor stories from the very beginning even if their vocabulary and grammar may be limited. The idea is to force them to think about English and combine what they know in a new way.
2. In mixed-ability classes the teachers have to use differentiation; i.e. offer the students tasks that correspond to their proficiency level. I suggest one way to do it in the next article following the CLT principles: 1) mechanical, 2) semi-communicative and 3) communicative tasks
3. The students are taught strategies and given models on good writing practices. They are also advised how to give feedback to others which also makes them think harder about their own writing.
4. The students are given the evaluation criteria, it is analysed and the students get to know what is required from them. Our job is tell them how to move on to the next level in Flow of ideas, Fluency, Content/Message, Language and Accuracy.
5. The type of texts we write at school today are very versatile and the days when we only wrote essays is over. These writing tasks can be made use of later in life too.

The other articles on writing in this unit are …

Writing	Teaching beginners writing, differentiation
	Basic principles, using criteria, giving feedback and writing in pairs
	Dictation, benefits and challenges
	How to use the evaluation criteria for written tasks
	The structure of an argumentative essay
	Returning the essays in style

Writing skill is vital not only because of getting written messages through but also for the development of our thinking skills.

Basic points to consider about teaching writing skills

There are many factors that speak in favour of teaching writing.

1. First of all, of the four language skills above writing is the most demanding one to teach. Why? Because the formulation of ideas, sentences, paragraphs and whole texts takes place solely in the minds of the writer and we can only indirectly affect the process of writing.
2. Secondly, after a lot of oral activities and a planning session, writing is often the final stage in dealing with a particular topic. We have to gather information, read, speak and listen about the topic before it makes sense to write about the topic. As a result, writing tasks are highly valued in final exams even up to university level.
3. Just like speaking writing is taught from the very beginning by taking small steps ahead at a time: first copying words and short clauses, changing them a bit and gradually ending up writing sentences and texts of our own.
4. For the teacher marking essays is considered to be one of the most demanding and time-consuming parts of the work at school. Luckily in most countries the marking is done against a criteria which also serves as a guideline for teaching.
5. There are ways how we can ease the workload of teachers in marking papers and there are ways how we can have a systematic approach to improve the quality of students writings and essays. Besides, some pieces of students’ writings do not need to be marked officially at all.
6. In real life after school few people write essays because we mostly write e-mails, instructions and specific workplace texts. This is why we nowadays teach various text types and practise writing them as well. Writing practices are much more varied these days than they used to be and therefore they are also more motivating.
7. Finally, we have to admit that writing is a skill that develops thinking skills more than any other skill because it requires careful time-consuming planning, being logical and systematic, justifying our views and opinions and many other things.
8. All in all, we can conclude that writing has a vital role in the teaching of any foreign language. It is up to the teacher to decide how much time should be devoted to writing, where is takes place and how it is integrated into ordinary lessons.