Importance Of Teaching writing as one of the main skills in English
The term paper is about teaching writing as one of the main skills in English and
it MUST includes these sections:
An introduction.
The purpose of the paper.
Definition of the skill of writing.
Teaching strategies.
Three studies investigated teaching the skill of writing.
Summary = opinion and personal impression .
References.
Also, format the paper according to APA 6th edition, NO PLAGIARISM PLEASE!, and
it should be in 13 pages without the title page and the reference page
Solution
Introduction
Writing can be taught as one of the main skills in English. Studies have shown that
English is actually one of the most commonly spoken languages globally. According to
Echevarria, Short & Powers, (2006, p. 195), in most states, English is thus taught as a second
language, particularly in the primary and secondary schools. It is therefore important for a
teacher to use writing as one of the approaches in teaching English especially among populations
characterized by low language skills. For instance in Malaysia, the government had paid much
attention towards writing as a strategy to teach English. Studies have shown that in most
countries, such as in Malaysia, the majority of the students have writing deficiencies. As a result
of this, the situation has forced most government together with the ministry of education and
academicians to come up with a strategy to introduce writing in teaching English (Graham, 2010,
p. 848). In most schools currently, writing has been given much credit when it comes to
evaluation.
Studies have shown that writing skills will help students especially in their later years of
education particularly in higher levels of learning and in the professional life. Research has
shown that most of the teachers often find it difficult to teach writing compared to teaching other
skills of learning such as speaking and reading (Warschauer, 2000, p. 512). Despite the various
challenges, studies have shown that appropriate practice among teachers will impact positively
on a student’s writing skills. There is the need for the students to be provided with adequate and
clear writing instructions to enable the students to learn writing skill effectively. Therefore, to
make writing an effective teaching techniques when studying English, there is the need to train
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 3
teachers to equip them with writing skills and knowledge so that they can be able to guide
effectively and further motivate their students who are practicing writing when learning English.
Purpose of the study
One of the major challenges that most teachers and students have faced while in English
classroom has been related to the aspect of teaching and learning writing. The majority of the
students are not fond of writing, and this is because they have never been encouraged to write. It
is important to encourage students to get involved with writing to equip them with relevant skills
in English (Warschauer, 2000, p. 511). Writing is thus communicative in nature and has been
used in various aspects of our lives such as in writing emails, assignments, notes or even essays.
The various writing skills have been argued to have wheat can be termed as a communicative
purpose. Studies have shown that in most English language classroom, the subject of writing lack
specific key aspects that define communicative purpose. Studies have shown that there are
strategies that have been established to make writing pleasurable among students and further to
be more communicative in nature.
Further studies have shown that students are often anxious to learn to write during their
first stages of writing particularly when they are being introduced to letters and characters.
According to Graham (2010, p. 850), young learners are therefore more than willing to learn
various aspects of writing and to discover other skills in writing. It is therefore important to
maintain the writing interest initially one had developed as a young learner as we develop our
writing skills in English. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of teaching
writing as one of the main skills in English.
Importance of teaching writing skills
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 4
In most school the aspect of teaching and learning has not been fully considered. For
instance, at the beginning level, the task of teaching and learning was considered a task meant for
the advanced and intermediate education stages (Storch, 2005, p. 153). As a result of this, studies
have shown that students will, therefore, be forced to shy away when it comes to writing, and
this was related to various complicated rules and idiosyncrasies. However, there is the need for
teachers to play greater emphasis when it comes to English writing skills because it is believed to
be vital and has a longer-term effect.
Further analysis has shown that most students would be appreciative in the event a
teacher introduces several English writing skills on their syllabus. This will therefore mold the
students and develop a well-rounded English skill set. Further writing skills can also be applied
when it comes to communication breakdown especially in countries where English is the first
language. According to Graham (2010, p. 849), w well-developed writing plan is encouraged to
be developed for all students to enable them to learn to write effectively. Through adequate
guidance, students will be able to discover new vocabulary and grammar, and this will aid them
in their development of well-structured paragraphs in various writing styles.
Definition of the skill of writing
Writing is simply one of the various language skills that are vital in English. Teaching
writing is thus an important skill in English because, through writing, the writer will be able to
inform, transact, persuade and further tell how an individual feels. It is thus one of the basic
skills in English that have proven to be very difficult to learn and even teach. Through writing,
an individual can give an idea in the form of a written piece of any other material. Further studies
have argued that writing is a form of expression in English often developed using sets of symbols
that has a conventional value to represent wording of language drew visually. It is argued that
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 5
writing skills have proven to be the most difficult skills to learn. This is simply because writing
is governed by numerous grammatical patterns, rules of writing that focus on appropriate
vocabulary, the content organization in addition to sentence structure (Zhang, 2000, p. 467).
Studies have shown that there are actually four skills as far as writing is concerned
including:
Grammatical skills: this defines an individual ability to appropriately formulate correct
sentences.
Stylistic skill: Individuals ability to be capable of manipulating various sentences and
further make use of language in a more effective way.
Mechanical skill: This outlines an individual capability to make appropriate use of
conversations that are unique to a written language including, spelling and even punctuation
(Stæhr, 2008, p. 139)
Judgment skill: Focuses on an individual’s capability to write appropriately with a
specific aim to select and organize most relevant information.
Teaching strategies
Studies have shown that writing can be viewed as multifaceted talks, and it entails the
applications of various cognitive processes. As a result, of its numerous complexities both the
teachers and students have found it more challenging hence difficult to learn and teach. When it
comes to the aspect of writing lessons, there is the need for teachers to ensure that the students
have read and analyzed their writing class (Ashwell, 2000, p. 227). It is important for students to
have a good grasp in terms of vocabulary and spelling on a writing topic. The structure to be
used has to be developed clearly. The structure for learning is a vital element towards the success
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 6
of English students. The teacher has to make sure that all the students are 100 percent clear
focusing on what exactly they are to write about.
Writing strategies
The teacher will be required to teach the student various strategies on how to plan
writing, revise and further how to edit a piece of written product. General processes of teaching
such as editing and brainstorming will have to be taught here. For instance, a student will be
taught on ways to write a persuasive essay to persuade the reader (Khaldieh, 2000, p. 522).
Therefore, the teacher must model the strategy and further be availed to offer necessary
assistance in the process the child practices on how to make use of the strategy immediately they
have learned it.
Summarizing text:
The teacher plays the key role of teaching the students an appropriate procedure for
summarizing a given piece of work. Studies have shown that through summarizing, a student
will be able to understand the concept of clarity and concise writing. The process of summarizing
is critical since it enable the development of a simple and clear piece to convey and the accurate
message just as in the original text. Summary writing teaching is vital since it tends to entail an
explicit strategy to come up with an effective summary while developing proficiency with these
skills.
Collaborative writing:
This will allow students to be in a position to work together as far as editing, revision,
and even writing is concerned. The teacher should thus be able to offer cooperative writing
structure. Individual performance within their larger cooperative groups has to be analyzed. For
instance, in a situation where each group is making use of a descriptive adjective when writing a
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 7
composition, there is the need for the teacher to allow one student to review the writing of the
other student. During this process, it is clear that it will be effective since the student will be able
to identify various instances where descriptive adjective has been used for various constructive
feedback communications (Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005, p. 191).
Goals:
There is the need for the teacher to come up with a specific role within the writing
assignment. The teacher can be the one to come up with the goal or even the class on its own
with some little efforts to the person. The goal set should be appropriate and attainable. For
instance, a goal can focus on adding more ideas on a given essay. Research has shown that with
effective product goal, motivation would be easy to foster within the school, and the teacher will
be able to offer reinforcement.
Word processing:
The computer should be used by these students in the event of completing a written task.
Using a computer, a student will be able to either add or delete a text much easily. Spell check is
software found online by use of a computer and this will to a greater extend enhance their written
work. According to Miltsakakin & Kukich, (2000, p. 408), guidance has to be provided by the
teacher for instance how to make use of a computer and online software before the student can
make use of them to write their assigned duty.
Sentence combining:
A teacher should explicitly teach their students on how to write and this should focus
most on writing complex and sophisticated sentences. Sentence combination should entail a
teacher modeling sentence construction using two or more sentences to come up with a more
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 8
complex sentence. Sentence construction skills should then be encouraged to be applied to
students in the class when writing a composition or even when revising.
Process writing:
A teacher should be in a position to implement a flexible classroom routine which must
be practical and easy to apply which will enable students to explore the extended range of
opportunities when practicing how to plan, write and further review their written composition.
This process approach will also entail writing for a particular authentic group of audience,
student to student interaction in addition to a self-evaluation of the piece of written composition
(Tangpermpoon, 2008, p. 29).
Inquiry:
A teacher should be able o set a writing assignment for student and should require the use
of a critical inquiry skill. For instance, to make this success, a teacher can set a clear goal that
will direct writing, for instance, writing an essay about a conflict. A successful inquiry will also
entail the examination of a concrete data by use of a particular strategy such as observation and
recovering of people's reactions and behaviors.
Prewriting:
This will entail engaging the students in various constructive activities before they begin
writing that will enable them to develop and further organize their work and ideas correctly. In
this case, pre-writing will entail tasks that will encourage the students to access ranges of
information and skills that they already understand and further carry out research on aspects that
they do not know or further arrange their ranges of ideas visually before writing.
Models:
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 9
At this process, the teacher will offer his or her students with a good effective model of a type of
writing that that are expected to generate. There is the need for teachers to analyze these models
together with the students in the class and further encourage them to imitate them in their writing
process.
The powerful writing skills
There are various skills that are believed to be powerful when it comes to writing.
Build on what students already know: It is important to teach students by strengthening their
capabilities in learning. Therefore, it is important to for teachers to build on what the students
already know. It is not necessary that their vocabulary has to be special, but the teacher can use
this as the platform to develop their writing capabilities (Topping et al., 2000, p. 150). There is
thus the need to encourage a little writing particularly in class, and this will entail, note talking or
even dictation. Therefore building confidence among students in note taking will give students
an ample time to practice writing.
Forming Sentences:
Forming sentences are believed to be one of the vital aspects towards writing skill
development. Therefore, it has been found to be a foundation for every writing. They should be
encouraged to form complete sentences that in the process develop complete paragraphs.
Therefore, it should be noted that sentences can be regarded as a glue that will bring together
various aspects of writing. Punctuations should be used and developed correctly.
Building Coherent Paragraphs:
In the event the students have been taught on how to make correct sentences, they can
then progress into developing clear paragraphs. The teacher has the responsibility to teach
students ways to develop paragraphs that make senses. The teacher should ensure that students
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 10
have a clue and understanding on making sentences before advancing in the development of
paragraphs.
Communication and Collaboration in Writing
There is the need for the teacher to incorporate communicative aspects in learning how
to write effectively. This will help foster creativity in addition to confidence among students.
This will enable students to have a solid understanding as far as writing is concerned. The
teacher can make this work when students are allowed to discuss openly the various writing topic
with them. For instance, a teacher can break the class into groups and allow the top work on
various topic of writing.
Choosing Writing Topics
The students should be directed to ways to choose a correct and relevant topic. The topic
should be presented in an effective and concise approach. There is thus the need to involve the
students in the process of developing topics to equip them with skills of selecting topics in
future. Using short personal stories is one of the effective ways to present a topic in writing.
Further, the teacher can use picture and videos to develop an effective topic (Topping et al.,
2000, p. 151).
Studies investigated teaching the skill of writing
Corrective feedback on L2 writing is believed to be vital in the recent years, and this
believed to be as a result of Truscott’s. The case put forward to the use of grammar correction
among the L2 writing classes was seen to be ineffective and further harmful and as a result, of
this, it has to be discouraged. The study was conducted to understand whether the type of
feedback particular written feedback that was given to 53 migrant students focusing on their
three basic writing errors such as preposition use, definite article and even the past simple test.
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 11
This study led to an improved accuracy in the various newly developed pieces of writing. The
study further showed the importance of written in addition to a conference feedback on the
student’s accuracy level in terms of using past simple tense. Therefore, for L learners while in
the process of acquiring new linguistic should utilize the writing support above. This implies that
writing skills I the most difficult to learn hence the need to be careful about the use of corrective
feedback to be used (Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005, p. 191).
The study used four different teacher feedback patterns and targeted foreign language
students. The study further focused on writing the first D1, second, D2 and third version draft D3
of writing a single composition (Ashwell, 2000, p. 227).The content focused feedback was
performed and compared. The study showed that the result of the recommended feedback pattern
was not different from the rest of the patterns where feedback was provided in terms of gains in a
formal accuracy or content score gain between the D1 and D3. Therefore, based on this study,
imply that most students rely heavily on the feedback and further, moderate feedback accounted
for a moderate effect on the students’ writing revision.
Research conducted in second language L2 learning among students indicated that most
of the learners who seem successful employed the use of a wider range of writing learning
strategies compared to those who were unsuccessful learners. The study focused on 43 American
learners in their writing tasks. Introspection process was employed to assess the learning
strategies. While composing, the students were able to write down various techniques and
procedures that they had employed to carry out their writing task. The result showed that all the
learners either, proficient and less-proficient showed that they were active users as far as various
learning strategies were concerned. Further, the learners who were considered less proficient
showed some significant level of anxiety in addition to frustration and as a result of this, they
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 12
adopted what can be considered as a negative attitude towards writing, hence unable to show
master of language structure. Therefore, their writings sample showed a significantly low level
of writing proficiency. This implied that their writing strategies and skills were developed at a
slow rate. On the other hand, for the proficient writers, showed some level of controlled anxiety
and seemed to be sure of their capabilities in language. The linguistic systems that were applied
in writing task showed that the rhetoric and the linguistic system especially for the first language
prevailed. From this study, it can be argued that proficiency in writing was evolving hence the
need for teachers to employ he used of mist approaches to teaching writing (Khaldieh, 2000, p.
522).
Summary -opinion and personal impression
I have noticed that initially throughout the early years of every child during his or her
language school years often seemed to enjoy and be excited with the beginning stages of writing.
It is clear that these young individuals, who can be referred to as young learners, learn how to
write and print their name, friends, teachers, siblings, and parents. Therefore, I would suggest
that there is the need for the same interest that had characterized these people while still young
learners to be retraced and reintroduced. It is evident from the analysis that writing is one of the
most difficult and challenging skills to be learned. From the analysis, teachers have also found it
very difficult when it comes to teaching writing skills in English. Despite being a solo activity
that in most instances is done silently, writing is difficult but writing in any other language is so
much fun.
Approaches should be put in place to ensure that students regain their early years interest
in writing while develop skills and confidence in adulthood. Research has shown that to make
writing successful; there is the need for a teacher to make it a foundation in order for one to be in
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 13
a position to write well in English. It is further argued that with a perfect combination of teaching
strategy that a particular teacher will pick, there is the need to give students in class an ample
time to be able to write comfortably. As a result, of time constraints Research has shown that
writing can never be a glossed subject. It is important for every teacher to take the keen interest
while dealing with weaker writers and this can be successful by introducing the need to have an
additional time, an individualized support whenever possible and further introduce an explicit
teaching that defines transcription skills.
However, for all the students regardless of their nature that might impact their writing
capability, there is the need for teachers to enhance the development of a self-regulation skill.
The most important aspect is to allow students develop goals both short and long term for their
writing, monitoring and even evaluation of how successful they have been. The teacher can make
this a success further by supplementing their writing practices by using a combination of base
evidence procedures. Self evidence-based practices can be used to make writing process and
teaching successful. Studies have shown that there is actually no single strategy of writing that
has proven to be the most effective and applicable to all the students. Therefore, teachers should
be willing to supplement their writing practices with evidence-based practices since this is
believed to be effective especially when dealing with mix students with different learning
capabilities of writing. This mixture of practices further has to be strategically tailored in order to
meet all the needs of students in class.
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 14
References
Ashwell, T. (2000). Patterns of teacher response to student writing in a multiple-draft
composition classroom: Is content feedback followed by form feedback the best method?.
Journal of second language writing, 9(3), 227-257.
Bitchener, J., Young, S., & Cameron, D. (2005). The effect of different types of corrective
feedback on ESL student writing. Journal of second language writing, 14(3), 191-205.
Echevarria, J., Short, D., & Powers, K. (2006). School reform and standards-based education: A
model for English-language learners. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(4), 195-
211.
Graham, S. (2010). Teaching Writing. P Hogan (Ed), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
Sciences (pp. 848–851).
Khaldieh, S. A. (2000). Learning Strategies and Writing Processes of Proficient vs.
Less‐Proficient1 Learners of Arabic. Foreign language annals, 33(5), 522-533.
Miltsakaki, E., & Kukich, K. (2000, October). The role of centering theory's rough-shift in the
teaching and evaluation of writing skills. In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting on
Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 408-415). Association for Computational
Linguistics.
Stæhr, L. S. (2008). Vocabulary size and the skills of listening, reading and writing. Language
Learning Journal, 36(2), 139-152.
Storch, N. (2005). Collaborative writing: Product, process, and students’ reflections. Journal of
second language writing, 14(3), 153-173.
Tangpermpoon, T. (2008). Integrated approaches to improve students writing skills for English
major students. ABAC Journal, 28(2).
TEACHING WRITING AS ONE OF THE MAIN SKILLS IN ENGLISH 15
Topping, K. J., Smith, E. F., Swanson, I., & Elliot, A. (2000). Formative peer assessment of
academic writing between postgraduate students. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 25(2), 149-169.
Warschauer, M. (2000). The changing global economy and the future of English teaching. Tesol
Quarterly, 34(3), 511-535.
Zhang, Y. (2000). Technology and the writing skills of students with learning disabilities.
Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 32(4), 467-478.
Order with us today for a quality custom paper on the above topic or any other topic!
What Awaits you:
- High Quality custom-written papers
- Automatic plagiarism check
- On-time delivery guarantee
- Masters and PhD-level writers
- 100% Privacy and Confidentiality