The campaign for improving reading interest and reading habit has been intensively done among the students and general public. But, have you ever heard a campaign for improving writing interest and writing habit? I have never heard of it. We often put the skill of writing on the last priority in our language learning and teaching. When I conducted a research for my final paper in the mid of the 1980s, I found the fact that writing was the most neglected language skill of the four language skills taught by English teacher at the senior high schools in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia. What are the probable reasons behind this practice?
There are some possible reasons why writing is neglected. First of all, many English teachers may not accustomed to teaching writing because when they learned English as students they were not taught how to write. They learned grammar just as a grammar lesson, no more and no less. This way of teaching English is passed on to the next generation when their students become teachers. While in fact, one of the best ways to test students' understanding and mastery of grammar rules is by having them use English in writing. If they learn a grammar lesson only, they will go no further than creating a correct sentence. Surely, this is not what we expect from our students when they learn English.
Why are English teachers reluctant to teach writing at the secondary schools? The most probable main reason is that teaching writing requires so much more than mere teaching grammar lessons. To be a good writing teacher, an English teacher should spend a lot of time on reading and correcting his or her students' writing assignments. If a teacher neglects his students' assignments, the students will not do the next assignment seriously, because they think that their teacher is not serious about teaching them writing. The students feel that their teacher is too lazy to correct their assignments. Without any smart strategy, of course, a teacher will be overwhelmed with the writing assignments, especially for the teacher who teaches more than 4 classes, which is very common in Palembang.
At present, the media for teaching reading and writing are abundant. Creative teachers can even teach writing without touching any pen and notepad. The use of media and technology can make the students even more absorbed with their writing assignments. It is in the hands of their creative teacher lies the appeal of writing as a lesson which is very influential in determining the future success of the students as learned people.
Majelis is a librarian, an English teacher, and a translator working at the Library of Graduate Program of Sriwijaya University (Pascasarjana Unsri), Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia. You can contact him via his website: http://www.pemburu-dolar.com
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