Is Writing Difficult?
While writing, most of us start making excuses of time
constraints, of unpleasant comments from friends, family, or teachers, and so
on. Practically speaking, the actual cause of the excuse could be the lack of
motivation, appropriate formative assessment, positive feedback, and
reinforcement that we as educators or teachers could not extend to our children
in course of their learning and grooming. (probably due to the class size or
time again!) Not only is this, of the four major skills of learning a language,
writing demands good grammar, constant reading, and practicing to enrich oneself
with knowledge and information. On the contrary, our learners are not in the
habit of either reading or writing as long as a teacher does not make it
mandatory or it is part of a test for grading compared to their listening and
speaking. Only very few are proactive learners and so, it is these children who
mostly perform the best in their studies and other aspects of learning. As
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) American anthropologist,
states that our vocabulary, language structures, and usage, determine our thoughts,
simply put language controls our thoughts not our thoughts control language,
and so speakers of various languages understand and experience the world
differently. Thus, the more we read, the more we want to write and can write.
Today’s children also expect better competitive learning
materials and environment which is not on the priority list of the concerned
authority in our part of the world. Very many experts and researchers have
studied and prepared reports on finding the cause of the faltering standard of
education both at school and university level. These reports have been welcomed
with great excitement and assurances, but then, when it comes to implementation,
there is no one to bell the cat. The paradox is that most schools of remote
areas either do not get the textbooks on time or it is too late when they get
them, let alone the competitive ones. Teachers, on the other hand, are
completely dependent on the same textbooks. Now, how and why should you expect
the children to perform the way you expect anyway?
Distractions cannot be listed in numbers. Our young
learners have myriad alternatives to get themselves engaged in for various
purposes. The most common ones are computer video games and the internet
followed by the press and the cinema. Excluding a child from access to
these media is again counterproductive. At least s/he is learning to listen to
and read something which gradually adds to their learning.
Why not reconsider the following factors at this point
of dealing with the writing intimidated learners?
1. Motivation
In the ESL/EFL classroom motivation is certainly one of the
most important factors and I'm sure most teachers are at one with this.
“Learner motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more
pleasant, as well as more productive.” Ur (1991:274). Why I'm coming to this
idea is that most of our students have low motivation to learn English.
Besides, most of them have a vague sense as to whether or not English will
benefit them in the future. Most learners in our context are guided more by the
examinations and the scores (Extrinsic motivation). The driving force dies out
like the hay fire and a teacher needs to constantly ignite it as long as it does
not become a habitual behavior. As William Littlewood (1987: 53)
observes:
In second language learning as in every other field of human learning, motivation is the critical force that determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres. It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on. These factors play a role in every kind of learning situation.
