Midterm - Writing Reflective 7 - English Writing Problems

Writing is one of the important skills that we must learn. Writing is not just stringing words together. Writers need to understand the purpose of writing before finally creating a beautiful literary work. In addition, writing is also a medium of communication between writers and their readers. Writing allows people to communicate their thoughts, emotions, or stories to others. Writing is a skill that everyone must practice continuously. Therefore, many people find it difficult to master this skill. Many of us often still find it difficult when writing, such as difficulty conveying the ideas we think or problems expressing complex topics in writing, and many other challenges. Of the many factors that hinder the effectiveness of students in writing, several common factors are usually felt by students in writing, among others, the first is grammatical problems. There are various causes for the writing problem. For starters, that is the nature of the writing process. Writing is a difficult skill to learn because it requires knowledge and understanding of grammatical sets, conceptual thinking, and judging mental elements.

There are many different styles of writing, from formal to informal. There are many reasons to include writing in a second or foreign language syllabus. One important reason is that: writing helps learners learn. It helps them have a chance to adventure with the language, and to go beyond what they have learned (Reimes,1993).

The product approach to writing focuses on the finished products of the writing work rather than the process. Nunan (1989) states that the product approach to writing focuses on the end result of the act of composition, that is the letter, essay story, and so on. The writing teacher who uses the product approach will be concerned to see that the end product is readable, grammatically correct, and obeys discourse conventions relating to main points, supporting details, and so on.

Learners’ Writing Problems

Grammatical problems, mechanical problems, sentence structure problems, and problems of diction are linguistic problems that hamper students’ effective writing in English

·         Grammatical Problems

·         Problems with Sentence Structure

·         Problem of Word Choice

Cognitive Problems

The cognitive problems that students face include problems with punctuation, capitalization, spelling, content, and organization.

·         Punctuation Problems

According to Byrne (1988: 16), the fact that punctuation has never been standard to the extent of spelling makes it problematic.

·         Capitalization Problems

Capital letters are useful for sentence initials, the beginning of important words, topics, headings, etc (Kroll, 1991).  

·         Spelling Problem

Due to the influence of other languages, variant pronunciations, and other historical reasons, the English spelling system which has become inconsistent is complex for students (Gowere et al, 1995).

·         Content problem

According to Leki (1991), this could be because of the traditional methods teachers use to teach writing for spelling, punctuation, and mastering grammar.

·         Problem Organization

According to Kharma (1986), learners have the problem of structuring the paragraph, topic development of a paragraph, structuring the whole discourse, and a theme in a discourse.

 

The conclusion is that writing is not an easy process, sometimes we often face writing problems. Many factors contribute to writing problems, Many stages, and challenges that we have to go through while writing. There are many causes for these problems, including writing difficulties, lack of motivation, lack of time, lack of practice, and feedback from teachers. However, with the many steps and difficulties that we experience, it does not mean that we should be afraid and not want to learn it. Writing is an important skill for us to master because there are so many benefits that we will feel when we can master these skills. We must be able to study and read more diligently so that in the future we can overcome these problems easily.  

 

Thanks for reading, have a nice day

 

References

Alfaki, Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed. (2015). University Students’ English Writing Problems: Diagnosis and Remedy. International Journal of English Language Teaching Vol.3, No.3, PP.40-52. Retrieved from http://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/UniversityStudents----English-Writing-Problems-Diagnosis-and-Remedy.pdf 

 

Arisya Putri

Class 4A

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