Teachers’ Writing Practices and Contextual Features in Grades 7-12 of Chilean Public Schools

Abstract

Since 2010, efforts have been made in Chile to support students’ writing skills development, in order to better prepare them for participation in modern society. However, more knowledge about current practices of writing instruction in Grades 7-12 is needed to guide future improvements in these educational levels. We aimed to provide a context–based picture of paradigms of writing instruction which are currently being implemented in Grades 7-12 of Chilean public schools. With this goal, we surveyed teachers of Spanish (n= 182) from all Chilean regions. Results revealed that teachers mostly implement practices related to the linguistic, cultural and procedural paradigms of writing instruction, while the communicative paradigm appeared to be less coherent and less strongly implemented. We recommend that future public efforts focus on diminishing teachers’ workload and providing them with adequate support for their needs in the classroom, especially for teachers working in Grades 9-12. This study can provide guidance to the international community of literacy researchers by presenting the state of the art of Chilean teachers’ practices in relation to its contextual background. This, in turn, can contribute to the construction of a broad view of the requirements for high quality writing instruction across the world.