The Literacy Approach for foreign language teaching

This week, rather than talking about the Approach as such, I'd like to share with you something that happened a few days ago in my classes at university. On Monday I asked the students to think about a frightening experience they had had, and eager as they are as first-year students, and seeing that writing about a frightening experience was their first task, by our next class on Wednesday some of them had already uploaded their assignments for me to correct. We spent the whole two-hour session working on stories, distinguishing between stories and reports, talking about plots, looking at plot diagrams, and correcting a story written by a former student. At the end of the session the students confessed that they had already uploaded their stories and asked me if they would be able to delete them. When I told them I would have to do so for them they were dismayed and begged me "not to look at them"! For me this was the best feedback I could have wished for. The students ha...