Learning To Write
and Writing To Learn
Writing is
the most sophisticated language skills among the four skills taught to English
students namely listening, speaking, and reading. For the reason, this is the
last skill that to be introduced to the students. In turn, they should start
listening before speaking; then speaking before reading; and finally; reading
before writing. Even though this is not an “absolute-strict construction” but
some studies advocate the chronological steps of that language acquisition or learning. I so say because the
stages of language learning are taken from the natural language acquisition
theories, by which a young baby will listen first, then speak, and is
introduced to read, and later on is to write. These unconscious processes are
copying the natural steps of the mother – tongue acquisition.
The mastery of writing ability is genetically transmitted.
Thus, students whose parents are skillful in writing must have been linearly
skillful at the same skill. Equally, those whose parents are unskillful in the
skill will be automatically inexpert in writing. The ability to master this
skill is, for that reason, transformed academically or culturally by
accustoming or practicing it. This is not genetically descended from parents
through their children. In as much, anyone has the potential to be excellent or
poor writer. And, this is dependent upon whether he/she is willing to practice
or not. This means that he/she must be triggered to start now rather than to wait
for because it will never come to him/her without any trials.
Writing is so-called the most sophisticated language skills
because this involves both linguistic and non-linguistic components. The
linguistic components having to be considered in writing is grammar,
vocabulary, spelling, and graphic symbols making the writing expressions become
logic. And for standardized test, it involves a certain rate or speed since
this limited by the time allotment. Unlike speaking, writing demands the clear
appearances of the graphic symbols attaching in all expressions of ideas. The
use of comma, for instance, is apparently significant in writing; unless the
writing will be misunderstood. In speaking, the speaker only needs a little
pause or interruption for replacing the use of comma. The use of comma is also
very strict for the other symbols as indentation, full stop, semi colon,
question mark, and the like. But, do you think that you should say orally when
you stop and question in speaking? No, of course not. You should express a
little flat to stop and by falling intonation to question. Then, the speed is
also absolutely important in writing but is not in speaking. The oral
communication process more needs the clearance of the expressions between
speaker and their opponents because if the expressions of the speakers are not
clear, they will be meaningless for or can be misunderstood by their
co-speakers.
Beside the strict use of graphic symbols and speed, writing
also considers the correct use of spelling. Yet, this is the fact that the
correct use of the spelling is not absolutely strict in speaking. Orally, you
can say: he/she go to school, but in writing you should say: he/she
goes to school. Otherwise, you must have made a mistake for such an
expression. This also applies for word choice. For example, you should say: related
to rather than related with in writing; but you may say; related
to/with in speaking. Again, you should be consistent with spelling systems
in writing and not be strict in speaking. The word student, for example,
should be constructed by the letters s,t,u,d,e,n,t; but this can appear unclearly in
speaking. Though pronunciation in the
case of spelling is attached in speaking, but it is still possibly clarified
when there are mistakes by directly questioning. However, this is not for
spelling because the writer and the reader are far apart.
Beside linguistic component, there are still several demands
for non-linguistic factors. Certainly, these factors cannot be separated with
the former discussion namely the language component. Therefore, the importances
of language components are the same as that of the non-linguistic factors.
These factors must be revisited because English students still have big
difficulties to comprehend and apply those in writing practice. For some cases,
they could not develop a topic sentence into a good paragraph. To do so, they
should be able to make supporting ideas. Also the ideas must be related to the
previous topic sentence. However, this is not a simple and an easy business
since they should compose them within chronological orders so each comes after
another and does not jump at random. And it is often that there are several
topic sentence in one paragraph so this is ambiguous to be understood. Or there
are several supporting ideas, but the ideas are not related to the considered
topic sentence; thus the paragraph is still confusing. Similarly, a writer
should comprehend the other non-linguistic factors as unity, coherence,
continuity, and entirety (Sullivan, 1984: 4 – 15). And as previously explained,
the comprehension of non-linguistic factors must also be completed by that of
language components because although one is skillful in grammar, vocabulary,
spelling, in the use of graphic symbols, and has normal speed in writing; but
if he/she does not comprehend the non-linguistic factors, his/her writing can
be nothing and vice versa.
This seems that writing is difficult; but this is not to
frighten new beginners. It more to trigger all of the new beginner to study consistently.
This writing must be challenging for all of them, so they should learn to write
and write to learn. A good writer is not born but created.
References:
E. Sullivan, Kathleen, 1984. Paragraph Practice: Writing the
Paragraph and the Short Composition, Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc, New York.
P. Harris, David. 1969. Testing English as a second
Language, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
