Some Aspects of Designing a Course of Writing at Tertiary Level

Abstract

As writing was a neglected language skill in Latvia ten years ago, it seemed necessary to investigate the present situation in teaching writing in EFL in order to develop a course of writing for students majoring in English. The research was carried out in two stages: (1) the analysis of the present situation and (2) the analysis of the recently popular approaches to teaching writing. It is evident, that future specialists in English should be able to deal with various texts in personal, public, educational and occupational domain. As students have insufficiently developed writing skills when they start their studies at University, it is impossible to meet all their needs in a couple of years at tertiary level. In conclusion the paper points out that it is necessary to pay greater attention to purposeful communication and expectations of different discourse communities in teaching writing already at school.