TIPS TO MAKE STUDENTS WRITE
teaching writing
Writing in a second or foreign language is considered as the most difficult skill to acquire in academic contexts. Beginning students commonly find difficulties in finding the words they need and remembering grammatical conventions. In addition, some problems also rise in the more advance students writing process.
More advanced students find it difficult to link their ideas with coherence and to produce appropriate target language discourse. Moreover, Chen (2002) and Ashwell (2000) as cited by Mojica, L. A. (2010) notes some writing difficulties in their studies: word choice or vocabulary, articles/determiners, use of the plural/singular forms of nouns, spelling, prepositions, punctuation marks, agreement between the subject and the verb, and verb tense. Therefore, the simplest answer for those writing problems is by making the students feeling free from all of those writing burdens. A major point for the beginners is making them accustom to write.
writing
Students feel being forced to write a certain topic or to find out a certain topic to write so that, they will lose their writing interest. Referring to that problem, teacher should be able to create an atmosphere in which the students are free to transmit what are in their mind, what they feel, and want to write into a form of writing. Moreover, the teachers should not give a burdensome about thinking of grammatical errors or dictions while students are in the process of writing.
Students learn more effectively when they are encouraged to transfer what they already know to their learning of English. Joyce (1997:3) as quoted by Christy (2008) explains that by connecting the material to students’ context, students will have many more ideas to express rather than when they still have to think and create their materials based on a certain topic. It would be easier for them to talk and tell about their surrounding and experiences rather than create a new story based on a certain topic. Therefore, as the results, students will not stuck in finding ideas for their writing because they can just transfer what they have already experienced.
Graman (1998) in a very interesting article entitled Education for Humanization: Applying Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy to Learning a Second Language as quoted by Doyle (1999), also explains how the ideas of Freire taught him that students are more likely to develop intellectually and linguistically when they analyze their own experiences. Furthermore, students will also get better understanding of these experiences, if they are able to build their own words to describe their own experiences. It indicates that students should study content and problems that relate to the world where they live.
