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.