编者按:本栏目精选了国外教师教授英语写作的两例实例，介绍了规定专门写作时间和按故事情节写信两个有趣的活动帮助教师培养学生的写作兴趣。

　　Two ways to encourage students to write

　　Shirley Kawa-Jump

　　* The writing half hour

　　Once a week, introduce a writing half hour when students are not allowed to talk and can communicate only in writing. You can follow these steps.

　　Step 1: Bring in lots of scrap paper and distribute it to your students. Make sure that every student has several bits of paper.

　　Step 2: Tell the students that for the next 30 minutes they are not allowed to talk but can only write.

　　Step 3: Answer any questions that students may have and then begin the half hour.

　　Step 4: Carry round paper yourself and write notes and questions to your students.

　　Step 5: In later weeks you can give students tasks to perform during the half hour. For example, ask some students to find out if girls in the class enjoy grammar more than boys. Ask other students to find out what people worry about most in terms of their future.

　　Step 6: At the end of each activity you can collect in all the papers and find out what grammatical mistakes students are making. But be sure not to tell an individual student what mistakes he or she has made, as this may inhibit their desire to communicate.

　　半小时写作

　　每周在课堂上规定半个小时的写作时间，要求学生不能说话，只能通过写作交流。以下是作者建议的练习步骤:

　　第一步:准备一些纸条发给学生，确保每位学生手里都有纸条。

　　第二步:告诉学生在以下的30分钟内不能说话，只能写。

　　第三步:回答学生提出的任何问题，然后宣布计时开始。

　　第四步:老师亲自收集纸条，在上面写上批注和对学生提出的问题。

　　第五步:在以后的几周，老师可以在这半个小时的时间里给学生布置任务。比如:让几名学生调查班里的女生是不是比男生更加喜欢语法;或者让他们调查人们对未来最为担忧的事情。

　　第六步:在每个活动的最后，老师收集所有的纸条，总结学生在写作时犯的通病。一定不要单独告诉每个学生他/她所犯的语法错误，不然会遏制他们交流的欲望。

　　* From a story to a letter

　　Take a book or a short story and use it as a springboard for letter writing. Students imagine that they are one of the characters in the story, writing a letter to another of the characters. (You could also do this with a film.)

　　Step 1: In the middle of the reading, ask students to think for moment. Ask them: which character in the story impresses them most / what this character’s biggest problem is / who can help that character to resolve the problem.

　　Step 2: Ask students to imagine that they are this character. Tell them to write a letter to the character that can help them. Ask them to make some notes about what they want to say.

　　Step 3: When students have made notes, talk a little bit about formality and informality in letters and ask them to categorize some phrases as formal, informal or neutral, e.g. I am writing to you in order to … / Best wishes / Yours sincerely.

　　Step 4: Give students some time to write the letter. Make sure that they know how formal or informal their letter should be.

　　Step 5: Make a general list of positive points and mistakes that arose in the letters and go over this in class in a subsequent lesson. If students wrote to each other’s characters then you could ask them if they want to exchange letters.

　　从故事到信件

　　准备一本书或一个短小的故事作为学生写信的平台，让学生假想自己是故事中的一个人物，他/她要给另外一个人物写一封信。（可以用电影来代替书或故事）

　　第一步:在故事阅读的中间环节，留给学生一定的思考的时间，然后提问他们如下几个问题:故事中哪个人物留给他们的印象最深？/这个人物遇到的最大的问题是什么？/谁能帮他解决这个问题？

　　第二步:让学生想象自己是故事中的这个人物，要给能帮助自己的人写一封信。让他们把准备写的内容列一个简短的提纲。

　　第三步:在学生列好提纲之后，介绍正式信函和非正式信函的书写方式。列举信件用语如;祝好/您的真挚的/保重/非常希望能够得到您的帮助，让学生按正式、非正式、中立来分类。

　　第四步:给学生一段时间来写这封信。确保他们知道这封信的正式程度。

　　第五步:下次上课的时候给学生讲他们作文中的优点和错误。如果学生写信的对象能够对应，老师可以让他们互换信件。