LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:10 October 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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“Read-Like-a Writer” Approach to Teaching Writing

Shahin Sultana, M.A. in ELT, Ph.D. Research Scholar

Abstract

There is a widespread recognition that writing is a process which involves several steps in creating a piece of writing. According to Silva (1990, p. 15), the process-oriented approach needs step by step developments. As far as the researchers have concerned that reading and writing have a mutual relationship. Reading builds the diverse kinds of knowledge to write on; writing reinforces knowledge in a way that builds schemata to read with. Reading and writing interact with each other, possibly making use of same cognitive structure to create a text world (Kucer, 1985, p. 106). Many writing classes begin with the reading text, analyzing them, looking at them as models for writing as using them as a piece of communication to response. Reading plays a decisive role in the development of writing ability. So, reading appears to be as an essential pre-condition to produce a good writing. This study is a try to investigate that, Steve Peha’s ‘read- like-a-writer’ approach may be essential for the Bangladeshi learners to teach integrated reading and writing courses. This study is based on original data regarding students’ essay writings and the common problems in writing have been obtained by using document analysis and questionnaire responses.

Keywords: Teaching writing, Process approach, read-like-a writer approach, EFL.

Introduction

Unlike speaking, writing is not an innate skill or capacity. It is a technology that has to be learned (Tribble, 2003, p. 1). Students will have an organized, coherent and error-free writing in English has always been the lifelong dream and ambition of all EFL teachers. In EFL context like Bangladesh, students consider English is a subject, not a language. When students join in the university, they fail to show their expected competency in writing in English. Hedge (1998, quoted from Tuan, 2012, p. 1) declares that writing skill was often relegated to the ‘status’ of ‘ homework’ due to the limitation of time and syllabus outcomes, thus having no effects on the possibility of the teacher’s guide. Students’ English proficiency is measured through written exam, and the students’ spread a long time in English writing, this writing, in reality, is limited to some selected items to answer for instance paragraph, essay, and letter writing etc. For this reason, students sometimes try to memorize selected items collecting from popular notebook, another reason is that teachers always give feedback merely underlining the mistakes and errors hardly provide any constructive comment for the correct writings and sometimes they do not give any feedback regarding students’ writings and the teachers are also traditionally preoccupied mostly with the dominant sense of grammatical accuracy rather than the development of ideas (Khan & Akhter, 2011, p. 6). Writing is to be learned not a reproduction of the teachers’ examples. The teacher’s role should be nondirective, facilitate, and they will assist the learners to express learners’ meanings through an encouraging and supportive environment with minimum interference. Since the 1980s, there is a widespread recognition that writing is a process that involves several steps in creating a good piece of writing. According to Silva (1990, p. 15), the process-oriented approach needs step by step development, one of these is the integration of reading and writing. As far as it is known that reading and writing have a mutual effect. According to Kucher (1985) clarify that reading builds the knowledge of diverse kinds to write on or to employ in writing; writing reinforces knowledge in a way that builds schemata to read with (p.489). Reading and Writing communicate with each other and make the same cognitive structure to create a text world. So, an integrated skill in the classroom is an ideal environment to apply Steve Peha’s “Read like a writer” as an integrated and parallel process of reading and writing.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Shahin Sultana, M.A. in ELT, East West University, Bangladesh, Ph.D. Research Scholar
Department of English Literature and Language
Goa University
Taleigao Plateau- 403206
Goa
India
Shahjinmatin.9@gmail.com
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