Narrative Construction and Writing Skills Development

Perhaps, one of the main challenges in English Teaching is the development of the writing skills in students. 
Often, learners success in expressing orally quite complex ideas, but fail in the construction of those same ideas on paper. Syntactical issues as well as the inability of concatenate facts and events are frequently found in the production of young learners. The causes could be traced to the lack of exposure to writing models in the first phase of the formational process.

Back to the acquisitional process of the native language, it is remarkable that, in childhood, tales and short stories are the way people get involved by the first time in reading and writing activities. This first contact is critical in the development of complex discoursal practices throughout the lifetime. It determines the way people attach to writing and reading in their own language.

This way, I suggest the narrative construction in a second language as a way to generate and/or boost writing skills in learners, especially in those who are beginners.

The main difficulty to language students (beginners or at an intermediate level) is the construction of a coherent discourse as a consequence of the misuse of the structures of the second language and the interferences of the native one. Lack of vocabulary does not seem to be a significant problem, since students have available a huge lexical source in dictionaries, internet and other media.

A teacher has to deal with this complex issue, mainly derived from the lack of writing models that forge the students’ abilities. By the exposition to literary pieces (from the most basic to the most complex), the teacher provides this sources and makes up to the absence of models and writing tools. Subsequently, the students have the opportunity to create literary expressions based on the texts they were given. One of the rewards of this activity is to link them to the creative processes that bring the literary pieces they as learners read and appropriate. Essentially, this will be a prometheic act.

The exercise works in a double way: not only to generate an aesthetical delight in students, but also to provide them with tools for the development of writing skills. The approach to literature also stimulates imagination. The tematics must be fresh and attractive, they must catch the students' attention and give them the elements for their own discoursal construction. This is supposed to be the beginning of a full process in which the learners will go from weaving short narrative texts to the development of complex elaborations.

This work is intended to young learners concerned about improving their writing competencies, as well as teachers interested in boost their students' imagination and creative abilities. 

Andrés Bolaño M.