Enhancing Efl Learners Writing Skill Via Journal Writing Education Essay

The accomplishment of authorship has been for old ages considered to be of import, but besides demanding and disputing for foreign linguistic communication scholars. In Enhancing EFL Learners ‘ Writing Skill via Journal Writing, Tuan points out that pupils ‘ advancement in authorship is hindered by uninteresting nature of the accomplishment itself ( Hedge, 1991: 6 ) , fright of rectification and clip force per unit area ( Weir, 1990: 61 ) . In his research, he aims at set uping whether the acquisition of composing accomplishments can be facilitated and advanced by the usage of diary authorship. The experiment took topographic point amongst 85 Vietnamese sophomore pupils of English of similar authorship proficiency. The topics, divided into Control ( CG ) and Experimental Group ( EG ) , were assigned assorted in-class authorship activities. Members of the latter were besides required to carry on a personal diary for a period of 13 hebdomads. The consequences were analysed and compared harmonizing to quantitative ( figure of words produced, figure of unfinished essays, figure of errors and mean tonss ) and qualitative methods ( questionnaire study ) .
The findings province that participants from the Experimental Group produced more words, made less errors and received better tonss. Their motive has besides increased as they found the activity utile and enjoyable.
It is undeniable that the pattern of composing diaries helped Experimental Group scholars develop their general composition accomplishments, nevertheless, carry oning the research in an academic environment seems slightly unequal, peculiarly when one takes into consideration Tuan ‘s motivations behind the survey and the fact that academic authorship is well different from that found in a typical foreign linguistic communication schoolroom.

Britton ( 1972: 93 ) , in his acknowledged taxonomy, divided composing into three types: expressive ( exploratory ) , transactional ( explanatory ) , and poetic. This differentiation has been since supported by legion bookmans, including Phenix ( 2002: 50-52 ) and Browne ( 1999: 8-9 ) . Transactional authorship is related to academia, as it “ prepares authors for engagement in their academic or professional discourse community ” ( Babin and Harrison, 1999: 258 ) , while private diaries are classified as expressive composing seeing that they involve “ linguistic communication near to the ego, uncovering the talker, verbalising his consciousness, exposing his stopping point relationship with the reader ” ( Britton et al. , 1975: 88 ) . White ( 1995: 201 ) placed journal authorship amongst those techniques that help develop expressive, non explanatory composing accomplishments. On this footing serious uncertainties can be raised against the value of diary authorship in developing academic authorship accomplishments. White proposes that the advancement in scholarly authorship should non be achieved by agencies of authorship, but reading:
Within academic authorship, the nexus between reading and composing is extremely of import. Reading provides content every bit good as theoretical accounts. Students need developing in sum uping and rephrasing so that they can abstract thoughts from beginnings and present them within the context of their ain authorship ( White, 1995: 59 ) .
It is extremely likely that by composing diaries pupils were forced to look for certain words and forms in order to convey their ideas and feelings, which developed their general authorship accomplishments and improved foreign linguistic communication competency. It is nevertheless undeniable that such development is limited to specific, repetitive set phrases and discourse ( e.g. day-to-day modus operandis ) and does non enable pupils to compose in a broad spectrum of subjects.
One of the standards taken into history by the writer when measuring findings was figure of words produced. This benchmark seems nevertheless by no agencies related to truth and eloquence – standards of judgement. Undoubtedly, a greater figure of words does non guarantee the meaningfulness of vocalizations. It can, on the contrary, cause prolixity as the participants use constructions that are typical for this peculiar discourse ( e.g. disjunct adverbials ) .
With mention to the statements that supported set abouting the research, one averment stated that pupils feel “ uncomfortable about being corrected ” and are hence afraid of perpetrating mistakes. The conversations nevertheless revealed that the pupils felt that they can larn and profit from doing mistakes, even if they encounter jobs with showing thoughts and feelings over a limited linguistics repertory. Another disagreement between the concluding behind the research and the existent results is that the challenge of developing the wont of “ believing on paper ” was non met by diary authorship. Despite bring forthing more words and doing less errors, huge bulk of Experimental Group pupils kept interpreting their thoughts from the First to the Second Language.
Although the research has emphasised truth, instead less attending has been paid to fluency in footings of functional rightness. The interviews conducted by the research worker expose great diverseness in discourse used by the participants. The linguistic communication of the pupil who liked diary authorship appears comparatively right, but sounds unnatural and awkward. Conversely, the pupil who did non like the activity, makes a few errors, but his address comes across every bit much more natural and unschooled. On the whole, the extracts from pupils entries presented in the article are a mixture of formal and informal authorship, with phrases like “ I feel like composing diaries ” in one sentence, and “ hence ” or “ a meaningful nowadays ” in another. As a consequence, the concluding lingual merchandise sounds inelegant and unreal.
One advantage of diary authorship is the development of certain, general authorship accomplishments. However, the virtues of diary authorship in developing academic authorship accomplishments remained unaddressed by the research. In the instance of the probe, it seems that pupils gained accomplishments they should already possess or at least pattern at the academic degree: summarising, rephrasing, critical thought, and doing their authorship cohesive.