EFL writing problems in the Korean students Jung Hwa Kim (Korea University) I. Introduction Writing skill in the study of a second or foreign language is considered as one way of measuring individual's language proficiency. Especially in Korea, where English is as a foreign language, people are more likely to access through written context than verbal activities. As the technology has been developed rapidly, the distinction between writing and speaking is no longer clear. The paradigm shift in writing medium such as chatting online should be taken into account thoroughly. The function of chatting is similar to speaking because of its simultaneous trait. However it is written and recorded like writing. The ability to express one's idea in writing or speaking in a second or foreign language is important in communication. Coherence plays a significant role. So on both aspects, to communicate more effectively, well- formed organization is certainly viable factor in common. I want to figure out how importantly organization can be considered in text. First, In this paper I did research on Korean learners writing in private language institute Writing is relatively easy to show how EFL learners display or develop their ideas. Second, I reviewed the data and results and findings. 2. Background 2.1 Writing competence: Toward a definition What is writing competence? The word 'competence' suggest a state of sufficiency or capability, or an ability that a person might have. Krashen defined writing competence as " the abstract knowledge the proficient writer has about writing" (1984, p.20). However, the notion of competence is not absolute; there are degree of competence. Therefore, a competent writer is someone who has achieved a given level of ability and is able to communicate effectively and convincingly. A competent writer might also be called a "good writer." 2.2 What is 'Good' writing? There are many various factors, however general descriptions of good writing in which most writers agree. Features such as clarity, explicitness, conciseness, clear paragraph structure, and overall organization are considered important. Ultimately, however the 180
quality of a text is based on the judgment if the reader, and reader's own criteria become the essential measure of quality. In the Language Teaching Matrix, Richards (1990) identifies coherence and cohesion as the two basic aspects that determine the quality of a written text. Research questions 1. What are students' attitudes about writing? 2. What are most difficult factors in writing? 3. What kind of relations can be found between the amount of exposure in target language and writing? 4. What causes a problem in reading Korean students writing from the native speaker's view? 3. Method In order to examine students' writing problems, 32 students handed in 4 kinds of writing assignments and a questionnaire about what made students difficult to write and what kind of written text they read or write on a regular basis. The results of questionnaire and analysis of writing showed crucial data on what students really need to learn to improve writing and what aspect of writing can be applied to teaching methods to make learners' thought express more fluently especially when it comes to interlanguage. 3.1 Participants 22 middle and 10 high school students in a private language institute were placed into one of three levels according to their English proficiency. Group A is the intermediate level, Group B is the High Intermediate level and Group C the Advanced. The 32 participants were Korean students ( 15-18 years old). 3.2 Raters 5 raters, English teachers were 2 Canadians, 1 American, and 1 British and 1 Korean. They were teaching English in private language institutes. 3.3 Instrument Step 1 The questionnaire that had been administered as a pre-course evaluation was comprised of 3 sections. In section One, students were asked to first identify and rank the subject of difficulty in 5 categories such as reading, speaking, writing, speaking, and listening. In Section Two students were asked to rank according to the level of difficulty the five major 181
writing problems : (1) Contents (2) Organization/ Structure. (3) Language, (4) Academic Writing Style, (5) Mechanics. Section 3 is about a list of everyday written texts and decide how often they read and write such texts, on Often/ Sometimes/ Rarely/ Never scale. The text types were 9 kinds : (1) Letter or E-mail (2) Public notice (3) Product label (4) Newspaper (5) Poem (6) Diary or Journal (7) Academic article (8) Small ads (9) Postcard Step 2 Students were asked to submit 1 writing assignment per week. Students' writing scores were given by 5 teachers under the same measurement standard. The students received the average score of the five. 4. Results Results of the Questionnaire Section I. (Table 1) * What subject do you think the most difficult? Reading 7% Speaking 3% Grammar 31% Listening 5% Writing 54% More than 50% of students answered that writing is the most difficult part. The second one is grammar. The least difficult part is speaking although both writing and speaking are related to productive skills. The two sections need to have grammatical knowledge and coherence. Given the fact that, students feel more pressure about what is written than what is spoken. Compared to speaking, in writing, students felt more under pressure in dealing with grammatical errors. 182
Section II (Table 2) * Ranking of five types of writing problems % most difficult <---------------> least difficult Types of Writing Problems 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Contents 14 28 13 10 12 12 10 Organization 38 20 19 7 8 6 2 Language 22 18 15 13 19 6 6 Academic Style 12 16 18 26 8 18 2 Mechanics 1 5 6 12 26 19 31 ( Note: 1=most difficult; 7=least difficult ) From the table 2, students said that organization was the most difficult part of the five. The second was contents which was mainly about ideas related to a given topic. Students showed some variations as the proportion of the numbers was relatively balanced. The third was language including grammar and word usage or collocational expression. Section III (Table 3) * What kind of written texts do you read and write? * How often do you read and write? Read Write Letter 8 3 Public notice 3 Product label 2 Newspaper 7 Poem 9 Diary 4 1 Academic article 5 Postcard 6 2 Small ads 1 4 This question was included to figure out the relation of reading and writing and familiarity of written text type. Familiarity is viable to writing competence. As the table 3 indicates that students have read a lot of small ads or product label more frequently than any other types of written text. In EFL situation, especially in Korea students tend to be exposed to short ads than long articles in daily life. So the frequency of exposure of short 183
ads in English could make another factor of feeling under pressure if low level students were to write 5 paragraphs of Toefl style writing. On another words, students need to know how to organize paragraphs. Results of students' writing Topic: 1. Making money is the first priority in life. Do you agree or disagree? 2. What are benefits of genetically modified food? 3. When you have a lot of stress, what things are helpful to relieve stress? 4. Write you own fraudulent advertisement. Use pictures or illustrations to make ot look like a real ad. * 4 topics were given to students. The 4 topics of categories were descriptive, expository and argumentative. The length of each writing was limited to one page. * Rating measurement used 5 categories of scoring. 1) Contents (0~25) 2) Organization (0~25) 3) Grammar/ Structure (0~25) 4) Word Choice/ Word Form (0~15) 5) Mechanics (0~10) Results of scoring (A, A' or a represents all different students respectively.) 1. Group A ( intermediate level ) of 12 students (1) Contents =C (2) Organization =O (3) Grammar =G A B C D E F G H I J K L 25-23 C C C 22-20 CO C C CO C O C C C 19-17 GO O GO G G O G C O O O O 16-0 G G GO G G G G 184
(4) Word Choice/ Word Form =W A B C D E F G H I J K L 15-14 W 13-12 W W W W W W W W 11-10 WW W 9-0 (5) Mechenics = M A B C D E F G H I J K L 10 M M 9-8 M MMM MM 7-6 M M M M 5-0 2. Group B ( High-Intermediate level) of 10 students (1) Contents =C (2) Organization=O (3) Grammar=G A' B' C' D' E' F' G' H' I' J' 25-23 C C C C G CG 22-20 CG CG OGOGCG C OGCO 19-17 O O OG O OG O 16-0 (4) Word Choice/ Word Form=W A' B' C' D' E' F' G'H' I' J' 15-14 W W W W W W 13-12 W W W W 11-10 9-0 185
(5) Mechanics=M A' B' C' D' E' F' G' H' I' J' 10 M M M M MMM 9-8 M M M 7-6 5-0 3. Group C ( Advanced level ) of 10 students (1) Contents=C (2) Organization=O (3) Grammar=G a b c d e f g h i j 25-23 C CG O C CG C COG G COG 22-20 OG O CG OG O COG OG CO 19-17 16-0 (4) Word Choice/ Word Form=W a b c d e f g h i j 15-14 W W 13-12 W W W W W W 11-10 W W 9-0 (5) Mechanics=M a b c d e f g h i j 10 M M M M M 9-8 M M M M M 7-6 5-0 5. Findings From the raters' scoring data, native speakers said that insufficient organization led to confusion of understanding idea. The second is grammar. In interlanguage grammatical errors are very common. It is inevitable when students are in the process of learning L2. So fluency matters first then accuracy comes next. From the results, however, organization in 186
terms of fluency was the most tricky part to be improved. The third is word choice. Both contents and mechanics were not considered to make them confused. Learners in all 3 groups were estimated to have fairly good and creative ideas even though sentence structure is still problematic. So in contents, no significant differences were shown among different levels. However the three groups had organization problems in common. Especially those groups were not good at making smooth changes and connections between sentences. Each sentence formation was constructed well among highintermediate and advanced levels. So grammatical errors were dramatically reduced among group B and C. In word choice. Group A and B showed no significant variations. So between A and B group, B group used more grammatical knowledge. In addition, B group maintained better mechanics. So B and C groups were more aware of mechanics and grammar. C group scored a little higher marks than group B in organization. In contrast, both B and C groups maintained similar scores of grammar. From this observation, organization is the most tricky part. All groups received high marks on contents. This findings suggest that the inability of developing meaning from the given topics should not be blamed for lack of grammar or insufficiency of fluency. Problems in organization in detail (see Appendix A and B) In group A and B, students put Coordinate "and" in front of the sentences. Coordinate conjunctions were most frequently used in group A and B. Only advanced students tend to use "however, nevertheless even though, in spite of, consequently, hence, eventually". Group C used more "Transitions" than any other group. The advanced group had more transition. For example, there were ' in short, in this case, in addition, in fact, on the other hand, and in contrast'. Students rarely used ' whereas, neither, nor, likewise, similarly'. Although there were a bit more variety of usage, students need to notice appropriate usages of transitions and conjunctions. Surely individuals' variations or topic related variables should be considered. Related to organization, further studies could do more research about relations between L1 transfer and frequency of transitions and conjunctions. 6. Conclusion As a result, we should think of pedagogical issues. Organization should be taught and emphasized in writing class instruction. Writing class can support thorough lessons of what is organization in contexts. So language teachers should keep this importance in mind and try to develop more techniques on teaching organization. Organization affects not only writing but also speaking in terms of production ability and discourse skills. 187
Reference Cook, V.(2001) Second language learning and Language teaching, Arnold. Cyntia A.(2002) Writing to communicate, Longman. Mccarthy, M.(2001) Discourse analysis for language teachers, Cambridge University Press. Nunan, D(ed.)(2001) Teaching English to Speakers of Other language, Cambridge University Press. Scott. V.(1996) Rethingking foreign language writing, Newbury House teacher development. Appendix Contrast Direct Contrast Similarity Explanation Emphasis Addition Condition Conclusion Transitions however in contrast on the other hand whereas however while likewise similarly in the same way in other words that is indeed in fact in addition furthermore moreover otherwise if in this case in conclusion to sum up in short all in all Conjunctions Subordinate Coordinate but yet but yet both...and neither...nor not only...but also Prepositions in contrast to instead of different from unlike like similar to in addition to 188
Chronology Description Example Causation Result Unexpected Result Transitions first, second, etc. first of all at first next after that later on at last finally then eventually nearby for example for instance therefore for this reason as a result/ consequence consequently hence however nevertheless nonetheless Conjunctions Subordinate after before while when since because since as even though although Prepositions Coordinate and of for so but yet after before since prior to on top of under to the left to the right in front of behind above next to such as because of due to in spite of despite 189