TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES ON STRATEGIES OF TEACHING WRITING

Abstract

As we know that writing is one of the productive skills of language learning in which we jot down our own experiences, reflection and emotions in the form of graphic symbols. We teachers think that teaching writing is one of the challenging jobs and at the same there is also a question regarding how to teach it because in the past we used to ask our students to learn the readymade piece of writing by heart. There is no doubt that it cannot help in learning language. Now the time has changed and we have started to think about linking it with learning English language adopting different alternative ways or innovative strategies. However, there are lots of challenge and different practice as well as perception regarding teaching it and students of government schools are found somehow weak in this portion of language learning. The purpose of this study was intended to find out the practices of the teachers for teaching writing creatively in lower secondary level in public schools of Lalitpur district. This study is focused on examining the experiences or perception of the EFL teachers about the strategies of teaching writing as well as exploring the difficulties and challenges while using those strategies during teaching writing in EFL classroom. I selected five different lower secondary English teachers in Lalitpur district by using sampling. My research study is qualitative. Hence, according to the nature and demand of my research study, I adopted interview and classroom observation as my data collection tools. The findings show that although the EFL teachers have theoretical understanding about the strategies of teaching writing thus had applied different techniques and strategies such as: parallel writing, guided writing, free writing and use of pictures, samples, webs etc. while teaching writing. To some extent they failed to conduct the writing class smoothly. They seem alert about the importance of teaching writing skill in ELT classroom and about their roles to make the students feel comfortable and also known to the stages of teaching it. Practically something was lacking in their performances. The findings also show that different obstacles were also found but the teachers did not try to use alternative ways to overcome those obstacles. Based on the findings of my study, I have presented the implications that for language development teaching writing should be emphasized due to which students get chance to be familiar with the new vocabulary items. According to level of the students, teachers should teach writing applying different strategies; and for free writing different techniques like, use of pictures, newspaper, webs or clusters can be created and at the same time for vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms can be taught. If the teachers follow the stages of teaching writing in a proper way as well as setting up different communicative activities such as group work, pair-work, etc. it will obviously give the fruitful result. I have also suggested that teachers’ facilitation, motivation, inspiration and specifically feedback in a positive way are always needed which can bring courage in the learners to learn something new and teachers can also be benefitted from this. Finally, I have also suggested that blaming students is not good but we need to search alternative ways for teaching; and while correcting errors we should provide opportunity to the students.