9 The Difficulties Of Secondary Students In Written English Abdullah Mohammed Al-Abri Senior English Teacher, Dakhiliya Region 1 INTRODUCTION Writing is frequently accepted as being the last language skill to be acquired (Nunan 1991: 91) and it is true in Oman, as in other EFL contexts, that mastering written skills is a major challenge for learners. In order to identify ways in which Omani learners might be supported in the development of their writing, this dissertation examines the writing difficulties that secondary school learners of English face. 2 BACKGROUND My experience as a language teacher supports the view that many Omani learners of English face difficulties in their writing skills. At the same time, I am not aware of any research into the specific kinds of difficulties these learners experience. This motivated me to undertake this study. The findings of such work could, I hoped, inform my understandings of my learners writing, as well as provide other teachers with ideas to consider in relation to their own learners. 3 WRITING IN ENGLISH & ARABIC 3.1 What is Effective Writing? Effective writing requires a number of things: a high degree of organisation in the development of ideas and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity of meaning; the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis; and a careful choice of vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures (Hedge 1988: 5). Additionally, effective writing is also focused on the topic and does not contain extraneous or loosely related information. The range of issues writers need to address can be summarised as follows: 1
GRAMMAR Rules for verbs, agreement, articles, pronouns, etc. SYNTAX Sentence structure. Sentence boundaries Stylistic choices CONTENT Relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc. MECHANICS Handwriting, spelling, punctuation, etc. Clear, fluent and effective communication of ideas WRITER S PROCESS Getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts, revising ORGANISATION Paragraphs, topic and support, cohesion & unity AUDIENCE The reader/s WORD CHOICE Vocabulary, idiom, tone PURPOSE The reason for writing Figure 1: Aspects of writing (based on Raimes 1983: 6) 3.2 Comparing English and Arabic Writing I include a brief comparison here of English and Arabic writing systems as this may be relevant to understanding the difficulties Omani learners have in written English. 2
3.2.1 Similarities Both English and Arabic have letters not symbols or characters. In both languages letters can be represented in different fonts (e.g. Times New Roman or Arial for English, Kufi or Thuluth for Arabic). In addition, some common punctuation marks are used in both languages (e.g. comma, colon, semi colon, full stop, question mark). 3.2.2 Differences There are a number of differences between English and Arabic writing: The direction of the writing system: Arabic is right to left, while English is left to right. The sets of letters: there are many differences in the sets of letters which make up the English and Arabic alphabet. For example, there are no capitals in Arabic as Sassoon (1995: 25) points out, the concept of two sets of letters, capitals and small, is by no means universal. Separate letters or joined letters: in Arabic, letters are almost always joined; in English this is not the case. Syntax: there are also several syntactic differences between the two languages which will influence Omani learners writing in English (e.g. the rules for positioning adjectives are not the same). 4 METHOD The aim of the study was to investigate the writing problems of learners of secondary level learners of English. To collect data relevant to this issue, I surveyed the views of teachers of English at secondary level and interviewed learners. The learners were age 17 and in their 7 th year of learning English. They were following the General Education syllabus, using the course book called Our World Through English. The survey took the form of a questionnaire which was considered a suitable means of obtaining information from a wide range of respondents. It was administered to 40 teachers in different secondary schools. A group interview was also conducted with 10 learners in order to investigate their views about writing in English, especially about the difficulties they face, and to compare these views to the teachers questionnaire responses. 3
5 FINDINGS 5.1 Questionnaires Questions 1 and 2 asked for demographic information about experience and classes taught. Question 3 asked teachers to rank different types of errors in terms of how common they are in learners writing. This was the question: The results for this question are summarised below in Figure 1. According to the teachers, spelling errors are those most common in their learners writing, followed by verb tense problems and errors of vocabulary. Question 4 was Do you have time to deal with learners errors?. Many teachers indicated that they felt they had insufficient time to respond fully to all the writing difficulties their learners had; as one teacher explained we are running against time trying to complete the Activities Book and the Pupil s Book. Question 5 was How do you usually deal with these difficulties?. The individual correction by the teacher of learners written errors was the most common strategy used, though a few teachers also mentioned peer correction. Providing extra written practice as well as whole class discussions about writing difficulties were also strategies mentioned by some teachers. 4
8 Rank frequency (lower is more frequent) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Spell. S/P WO V.T. Vocab. Approp. Punct. Irre.inf M. not C W. miss Writing Difficulties Figure 1: Teachers ranking of errors in learners writing Question 6 was Are you satisfied with the results of your reaction? Why? Why not?. No clear picture emerged here as teachers expressed a range of opinions from completely satisfied to not satisfied at all. The teachers expressing the latter view were in the minority though. Question 7 was Are your pupils satisfied with your system in labelling their errors? Why? Why not?. The results here suggested that the more experienced teachers felt more satisfied with the system they used for labelling errors in written work than less experienced teachers did. Most respondents did not give reasons for their answers. Question 8 was Why do you think your pupils make these errors?. Most of the teachers explained learners problems in terms of the fact that most of their learners have no exposure to English outside the classroom. Several teachers also suggested that secondary learners problems in writing were a result of them not having received a solid foundation during their initial years of learning English. Question 9 was What do you suggest to develop the pupils writing?. Teachers suggested a range of strategies, such as providing more practise in writing and considering ways of making feedback on writing more effective, e.g. through experimenting with peer correction. 5
5.2 Interview Data The group interview with 10 learners aimed to elicit their views on the problems they have in writing in English. The two problems which the learners agreed were most common were grammar and vocabulary. Grammar was seen by learners to be the foundation for effective writing, and they felt that not knowing how to apply grammar rules correctly was their major problem. Vocabulary was also identified as a key area of difficulty, though the learners felt this was not as important as grammar in enabling them to write well. Spelling and punctuation problems were also mentioned by some learners, but these did not emerge here as issues the learners felt caused them great difficulty in writing. 6 DISCUSSION Both teachers and learners agreed that writing in English presents many challenges for the learners, and both groups identified several common areas of difficulty which appear in the dimensions of writing identified by Raimes (1983) and which were shown earlier in Figure 1. However, while teachers felt that spelling was learners main problem in writing, the learners themselves were more concerned about their use of grammar and vocabulary. Learners did feel spelling was an area of difficulty but they seemed to feel it was less of a concern than grammar. Perhaps the slight difference in emphasis in the responses of the teachers and learners was due to questions they were asked; teachers were asked about the most common difficulties, learners talked about those they found most difficult. None of the difficulties identified in this study seemed to relate to the differences between English and Arabic discussed earlier. This perhaps reflects the fact that the learners in this study had already been learning English for 7 years and had progressed beyond the stage where, for example, the direction of writing, remains a problem. The issue of time also emerged as an important factor here in teachers comments on how they respond to learners errors in writing and how satisfied they were with their approach. More experienced teachers showed more awareness of alternative, and possibly less time-consuming, strategies for feedback than less experienced teachers. It would seem that greater awareness among teachers of the different strategies which can be used in responding to learners writing might enhance the levels of satisfaction teachers feel about this aspect of their work and also enable them to handle it in a more efficient manner. 6.1 Limitations This study has examined teachers and learners views of learners writing difficulties. It did not, however, analyse samples of learners writing in order to identify the kinds of errors which actually occur. Although teachers and learners views are insightful, analyses of written work would have 6
provided an additional dimension to this work, and should clearly be part of any future research of this kind. 7 CONCLUSION This study suggests various strategies for further, more systematic analyses of the writing difficulties of Omani secondary school learners of English. More extended surveys of teachers views could be conducted. And, as already mentioned, analyses of actual written work are required to compare to the views of teachers and learners. More qualitative analyses of the processes learners go through while writing (perhaps using think aloud protocols) would also enhance our understanding of this issue. Finally, a longitudinal perspective would also be interesting to pursue, tracking the writing development of a group of learners over time. There is clearly much scope for continuing research into the writing of Omani learners of English. REFERENCES Hedge, T. (1988) Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nunan, D. (1991) Language Teaching Methodology. London: Prentice Hall. Raimes, A. (1983) Techniques in Teaching Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sassoon, R. (1995) The Acquisition Of A Second Writing System. Oxford: Intellect. Zamel, V. (1987) Writing: the process of discovering meaning. In Long, M.H. and Richards, J.C. (Eds.) Methodology in TESOL: A Book of Readings. New York: Newbury House. 7