Challenges in teaching English composition

Challenges in teaching English composition

By Setiono

JAKARTA (JP): The contemporary practices of English teaching
composition in the country do not totally reflect the
communicative paradigm of the modern English teaching
methodology. Endeavors to shed light on the improvement of
teaching composition seems to have received little attention and
have in fact become matters of complete indifference.

In many cases, the teaching of writing skills still favorably
advocates the traditional approach, which still proves the
efficacy of grammar, and thus perpetuates the belief that the
best pedagogical approach, particularly one that focuses on word
usage and standard syntax or correct form, would eventually
improve students' writing.

Moreover, it is widely acknowledged that the best way for
students to effectively acquire writing skills is by exposing
them to analyze and imitate a given model of good writing. In
this respect, students are assigned to compose a similar
paragraph by copying rhetorical structure and manipulating
syntactic structure. In so doing, students are expected to be
able to create a paragraph based on a given model with a large
amount of comparatively error-free writing.

As soon as students are capable of doing composition work by
copying the model, they are geared to stages toward "free
composition" (usually in the form of narrative and descriptive
prose) in which the exercises given put a considerable emphasis
on the production of high standard mechanical procedures. The
writing activities include step-by-step techniques such as, among
other things, determining the main topic, making topic sentences,
making supporting sentences, choosing the central idea, outlining
and paragraphing.

In light of teaching instructions, the traditional approach
only emphasizes the writing stage, that is, the students are
given a topic and a first draft is written. The teacher grades
the draft, then assigns another topic.

Given the above propositions, the shortcomings of the
traditional approach to teaching composition can obviously be
identified in several ways. First, the traditional approach
overvalues form and correctness as the sole essential aspect to
attain proficiency in writing and ignores the more paramount
facets such as purpose, content, audience type and the process of
writing itself.

Second, as the traditional approach encourages students to
elicit an entire, well-written composition similar to the model
given, it does not provide freedom for students to generate the
ideas using their own rhetorical structures. This tight control
of the use of language apparatus will inevitably restrict
students' creativity in expressing their ideas in their
compositions.

Finally, teaching technique utilized in the traditional
approach tends to concentrate on being product-oriented. This
technique requires students to finish writing one topic before
being assigned with another, and eventually compels them to
submit their end product to the teachers within a limited time
allotment. In so doing, teachers are not aware of the fact that
writing is an ongoing process and should undergo such stages as
having a prewriting activity, writing activity and rewriting or
editing activity. The implementation of this teaching technique
is truly counterproductive as students cannot optimally explore
and elaborate ideas in their compositions.

The above flaws of the widely employed approach seem to
conform to the failure of teaching writing to date, and suggests
that a revolutionary outlook should be immediately taken so as to
find better approaches to teaching.

Teaching writing is indeed an arduous and intricate
undertaking since it involves not only linguistic maturity, but
also sensitivity toward the audience type and cognitive factors.
The mutual interdependence of these three variables should
constitute a sine qua non, meaning without any one of which
writing would be immature.

Being linguistically competent, that is, being able to utilize
accurate grammar and mechanics to appropriately choose and select
dictions or expressions does not necessarily guarantee the
students to be automatically capable of producing an efficacious
composition. This is, however, not to imply that a knowledge of
linguistics should be undervalued in any effort in the writing
process. Such knowledge is indeed a crucial feature in writing,
but it needs to be taught to students not as an ends in and of
itself, but rather as a means with which to better express one's
meaning.

Writing is an act of communicating, and it implies that the
inclusion of the sensitivity toward the audience type is of
paramount importance. Communication is first of all a social act,
one which involves some kind of intention to effect and be
affected by others. In order to successfully realize this intent,
a writer must infer information about his/her audience to whom
he/she is addressing his writing. The information includes such
aspects as the audience's beliefs and attitudes, language
processing ability, interest and receptivity, as well as their
experience. In so doing, a writer can decide a writing strategy
in order to attain the desired effect on the readers.

Conversely, the lack of awareness toward the audience type
might pose a barrier between the writers and readers, and will
accordingly lead to the failure to produce mature writing.

Another crucial facet required in achieving mature writing is
the cognitive factor. From a psychological point of view, a
writer's experience generated from his/her long-term memory will
facilitate him/her to develop a given topic into paragraphs. The
experience stored in the long-term memory is termed "genre
scheme", which consists, essentially, of the knowledge available
for directing a kind of writing. Therefore, the more familiar the
topic is with the writer's "genre scheme", the easier it will be
for him/her to elaborate and shape the topic.

Apart from the aforementioned drawbacks of the traditional
approach, there are also several factors that potentially impede
the students' achievement in writing. One of these factors is the
belief that what is spoken may automatically lead to what is
written. Often times, the students are ill-advised by the
teachers. The latter frequently says "why don't you just write
like you talk", and students are thus unaware of the fact that
the nature of writing is considerably distinct from that of
speaking.

Mastering a language orally, however, does not automatically
lead someone to become a good writer because writing and speaking
differ from each other in terms of their linguistic and stylistic
conventions. Writing requires acquisition of a complementary set
of intellectual processes, in the sense that it involves the
skill to linkage and to sequence the flow of thoughts in a
coherent and logical manner. Failure to possess this skill may
mean failure in conveying the message to the addressed audience,
and will accordingly lead to writing disorganization.

First language interference is another factor that inhibits
the students' bid to attain maturity in writing. This of course
is considered the major source of obstacles by teachers who lack
writing experience. Most Indonesian teachers who instruct writing
are often times not conscious of the fact that their students'
compositions encompass sentences which are verbatim translations
from Indonesian into English. Consequently, their compositions
are often imbued with expressions comprising inappropriate
dictions and are then easily recognized as non-English by a
native speaker.

The last factor prone to impoverishing students' progress in
writing is the teachers' attitude toward the students' errors.
Teachers' judgments are often one-sided and discourage the
students as they are seldom allowed to counterargue their
teachers' written comments. Additionally, teachers who instruct
writing tend to put excessive criticism on the students' ideas,
yet offer no assistance in developing them. As a consequence, the
students may perceive their teachers remarks as an ultimate
failure in their composition.

In order to solve the above problems, the following
suggestions are of significant consideration:

* The objective of teaching writing should no longer be tailored
to form and correctness and the traditional read-imitate-write
model, but to the importance of content organization and audience
type. In this respect, accuracy in grammar is considered
peripheral.

* Writing must essentially be taught as an ongoing process and as
a process of discovery, suggesting that continuous revision
becomes the central concern of the course and that teachers'
judgments toward students' work are not considered final. By
doing so, students learn that writing is a process through which
they can explore and discover their thoughts and ideas.

* Students must be informed that the nature of writing is
different from that of speaking. This is done in order to avoid
the inclusion of their speech pattern in writing.

* Teaching instruction should undergo stages of a prewriting,
writing and rewriting process so that teachers can monitor their
students' gradual progress.

* Last, but not least, teachers who instruct writing ought to
provide more than one topic of interest in assigning tasks to
students, since different topics may lead to different findings.

The writer is a teaching staff member of the English
Department, Faculty of Education, Atmajaya Catholic University,
Jakarta.