the language and this is what often makes writing such a frustrating experience. White
(1980: 24) suggests that we must provide the students with a means of acquiring the
language required for the writing exercise we want them to perform. Finally, O’ Brien
(2000, Unit 2: 41) stresses that both the input we provide students with as well as the
output we ask them to produce should be carefully selected bearing in mind that
students can usually read language that is more advanced than the language they can
produce.
1.2.4. Students should be helped to see writing as a process
According to Raimes (1983: 10) the teaching of writing has begun to move
away from a concentration on the writing product to an emphasis on the process of
writing. Zamel (1983: 165) describes composing as a non-linear, exploratory and
generative process during which writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they
attempt to approximate meaning. According to Flower (1979: 19) : “…effective
writers do not simply express thought but transform it in certain complex but desirable
ways for the needs of the reader”. Students need to realize that in order to become
effective writers they need to go through a process of planning, organizing,
composing and revising (Hedge, 1988: 9) and therefore should not consider what they
first put on paper as their finished product but as Raimes (1983 10) stresses “…just a
beginning, a setting out of the first ideas, a draft.”
Finally, as according to Perl (1980a, 1980b) unsk