English teachers should remember to teach writing too

Simon Marcus Gower Executive Principal High/Scope Indonesia Jakarta

Sitting in the late afternoon sun, in the shadow of an attractive clock-tower (Bukitinggi's Jam Gadang), in West Sumatra a young learner of English expressed her greatest concern. "It's difficult for me to find native-speakers (of English) to speak to and so I cannot practice my English as much as I want. My English won't improve unless I can practice," she explained.

Practice is indeed a vital ingredient and there is no doubt that the opportunity to use the language will help in learning. Learning by doing is a tried and tested concept for practical subjects. The practical application of, and exposure to, the language has been widely acknowledged as a valuable asset in language learning.

The American essayist and editor, Russell Lynes noted that, "there is no better way to learn any language than by being continually exposed to it." And this would seem to support that young West Sumatran's concerns about practicing with a native speaker. But in order to quell these learner's concerns a little, an option was proposed -- namely that through writing exposure, practice and use of the language can be achieved.

To accommodate this written exposure to the language postal addresses were exchanged and correspondence (between Jakarta and Padang, West Sumatra) was duly engaged in. This kind of exposure and this kind of practice has a definite part to play in learning any language. But writing is a sadly neglected skill and opportunity to learn within the Indonesian classroom.

There may be a variety of reasons for this -- anything from students finding it difficult and even boring to write through to teachers do not feel sufficiently competent to handle it or capable to manage the perceived extra workload it may create.

But a primary culprit may be the manner in which the learning of English has largely been pushed towards the notion of learning through a "communicative approach". Thus there is the potential loophole that teachers and thus students will neglect writing.

In order to be communicatively competent the perception is that students of English must practice speaking in the language. But this kind of approach can create a degree of negligence and even apathy with regards achieving grammatical accuracy. In seeking to encourage students to speak in the language teachers are targeting fluency but may often be overlooking accuracy, which is dangerous.

It is, perhaps, a surprising reality for some to recognize that a person may be able to communicate reasonably well orally but experience difficulties when facing the written form of the language. However, it is an observable fact that when a person speaks they can make themselves understood, yet may consistently be making grammatical mistakes.

In short, it is possible to state that the English language may often have a different oral grammar that cannot be replicated in written form. If it were, it would likely be looked upon as bad English.

Consider the Indonesian teacher of English in a junior high school. Proudly this teacher praised a student as being "exceptional in English". However, this teacher was directed to give this student and his classmates a writing assignment. The teacher was shocked, almost horrified, at the results. This "exceptional" student, when asked to write a brief letter, surprised his grammatical errors that ran throughout the writing.

Here was a clear example of a student that would have been deemed successful in meeting the needs of the "communicative approach" because he could attain apparent oral fluency but closer inspection, made possible through the assignment of a writing challenge, showed that the student was not attaining accuracy. Consequently a substantial part of his language was at a disappointingly low level.

A critical factor in learning English is the use of context. Using words in a context and appreciating how they work together and off each other -- not learning words through memorization or by rote. Similarly, that context should be the context of the English sentences in which words are used.

It is not sufficient to constantly have students translate words. Learning through translation is always likely to prove dangerous as so often there are words that do not really have equivalents in the second language and so words may defy exact and accurate simple translation. There is simply no better way for students to see, appreciate and understand word context than seeing and using the written form of the language.

Challenging the students to produce their own writing directly fosters this appreciation and encourages the students to learn by doing and discovering for themselves, which is always likely to be a far meaningful and lasting learning experience.

Within the current curriculum for English in Indonesian schools there is some prescription of the need to target basic writing tasks. These include the production of formal and informal letters and writing of narration and descriptive pieces but these are rudimentary outlines at best and clearly many Indonesian teachers do not focus students on the skills of writing.

This lack of focus on writing skills is unfortunate on two levels. First, as highlighted, writing can be a useful tool in practicing and learning about grammar. But, in addition, a failure to look at writing does miss an opportunity to develop thinking skills.

The kinds of organizational procedures and structuring of ideas that students may learn from writing can, without question, help them to develop as thinkers and, by definition then, improve as learners. Results provide the best proof and validity of any theory and so to conclude -- a word or two about that young learner in Padang. When she first began writing her letters they were blighted by so many mistakes that it made them difficult to read and challenging to understand.

Little more than 12 months after she began writing the letters had become lucid, fluent in their presentation of her ideas and easy, even pleasurable, to read. She had got her practice and her language had improved.