The Role and Place of Writing Tasks in Learning a Foreign Language at University

Abstract

The article reveals the importance of developing foreign language writing skills among future specialists at foreign language classes at university. The concept of writing and the tools and opportunities for its development have been revealed. It has been noted that the components of success in mastering writing skills and building written communication are vocabulary, grammar and experience. The connection between the mastery of writing skills and the quality of teaching a foreign language has been established. The article highlights the issue of a text implementation in several language layers: orthography, grammar and discourse. It has been stated that the nature of the text is controlled by context, which includes social purpose, specific audience, modality, etc. It has been noted that writing is a recursive process that includes cognitive processes: planning, preparation, actual text writing, task performance monitoring and evaluation. The article states that before completing a written task, a teacher should familiarize students with the features of writing in the corresponding foreign language; the teacher should show students several writing styles or writing examples to familiarize them with writing patterns and forms. It has been emphasized that writing is one of the means of overcoming the psychological barrier in the process of mastering a foreign language, and written tasks in a foreign language are aimed at activating the working memory of students and providing space for thinking and generating content. The article offers examples of tasks for the development of writing skills at foreign language classes: tasks related to personal and real life experience, a task to complete a description, a task related to one word, a task to use the given words and their derivatives, etc. Emphasis has been placed on the role and importance of creative writing as an effective method of developing writing skills, encouraging students to this type of language activity, developing vocabulary, grammar, and imagination. The role and place of evaluation in the process of performance of written tasks has been noted.