CHAPTER 4 MAKING THE APPLICATION OF TEACHING WRITING OVERT FOR PRESERVICE TEACHERS 37 LINDA M. HANINGTON AND ANITHA DEVI PILLAI Making the Application of Teaching Writing Overt for Preservice Teachers “ W hy don’t they see that the approaches we are using to teach them are those we hope they will use in their own classrooms?” This was the question we asked ourselves when we read feedback at the completion of one of our courses. The end-of-course survey indicated that most of the participants had enjoyed the course and felt that their language skills had improved, but they did not necessarily feel they could apply what they had learned to their own teaching. This surprised us because we had assumed they would realize that we were modeling techniques they could use when they began teaching. We had, after all, been using a process approach to writing that they had just studied in another course. So it puzzled us that the participants did not recognize that the opportunity for personal creativity and the support through collaboration and feedback we provided were models of instructional practice we hoped they would provide to their own students. The response of one participant to our approach showed a change in her perception of writing: “ Personally, I came from a point of view that I disliked writing and anything that had to do with coming up with a story. However, as I progressed with my group mates, tutor, and even whole class sharing, I felt that I started to like writing more. This activity really helps to boost individual’s interests and it is because of this interest and supportive peers who gave many suggestions to add into my storyboard, I felt more confdent in completing this piece of work. Also, what really boosted my interest level was the freewill to choose how we wanted to pres- ent this digital story. In the end, I now have a little crush on reading and writing as well. ” We remained concerned because this indication of interest in writing seemed exceptional. Why was it that our preservice teachers did not recognize how this approach would transfer to their own practice? Perhaps the reason was because our approach seemed “so different from teaching writing and oral skills the conventional way,” as the participant stated.