The results in Chapter Four have been presented to respond to the five research questions of this study. This chapter attempts to discuss and interpret in more depth the results. The chapter is organized around three issues. First, factors influencing writing instruction and measures recommended to improve it are discussed in such a way as to reflect and explain the differences between teachers’ perceptions of writing instruction and their actual practice. Moreover, teachers’ attitudes toward writing assessment in the entrance exam will be analyzed. Besides, the overall different perceptions of writing instruction between public and private school teachers will be further explored and discussed. Pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future study are discussed. Finally, this chapter ends up with a
conclusion.
The Differences between Teachers’ Perception and Practice.
There was a great gap between teachers’ perceptions of the importance of writing instruction and their practice. Although they didn’t deny the importance of writing skill in junior high school students learning, they tended to downplay its importance in practice. Almost all of them (91.1%) believed that students should acquire the writing skill and 80% felt the need to receive professional training in their teaching environment. The results show that teachers in general recognized the importance of writing instruction. In contrast to the findings, fewer teachers (46.1%) believed they should teach writing. Only one-fifth (21.1%) of them reported that they were teaching writing, and even a smaller percentage of teachers (8.8%) believed that writing was included in the English class.
This contradictory finding indicates that teachers could not deny the importance of it; however, they found it unnecessary or difficult to put the instruction into
practice. The difficulties teachers may encounter when they are faced with the mission to teach writing have been brought up in the literature on L1 and ESL writing. For example, Winer (1992) discusses the obstacles for either native or non-native English teachers. She pointes out that teachers themselves also dread writing, are uncertain of teaching skills, and are uncertain of skills in giving feedback, marking errors, and grading student writing. Lee (2004) also casts doubt on teachers’ competence in correcting students’ errors and suggests that teachers need more training and practice.
The gap between teachers’ perceptions and practice warrants a further discussion on factors that have been identified in this study as crucial to teaching and learning writing. Student’s language proficiency (83.9%) was recognized as the most important element of successful writing instruction. However, this issue can be addressed from two perspectives: students’ varied language ability and low proficiency. Teachers believed that either varied language abilities or a low level of student ability led to unsuccessful writing instruction. The national policy of sanctioning heterogeneous grouping of students results in substantial variation in student language proficiency, and consequently had become an obstacle for many teachers. In response to the
challenges, ability grouping (66.1%) was the most recommended measure to deal with the thorn in their flesh. Grouping students based on their proficiency was believed to let teachers provide appropriate instruction and let students learn more efficiently.
Varied student ability has also been recognized in literature as very difficult for teachers to tackle (Peyton, et al., 1994; Troia & Maddox, 2004). On the other hand, as for low proficiency, most teachers agreed that it is a disadvantage to successful
writing instruction. In Item 25 (open response is optional) five out of nine teachers who wrote down comments suggested that junior high school students’ English
competence is not good enough to learn to write and to be tested for their writing ability. However, unlike teachers in this study, many researchers as illustrated in Chapter 1 hold that writing instruction is appropriate and essential to any level of language proficiency (Zamel, 1987; Scott, 1996; Raimes, 1983; Hadfield & Hadfield, 2000). It seems that researchers should pay more attention to the practical difficulties in classroom and help teachers find solutions. At the same time, teachers should receive more training and updated knowledge and be encouraged to try alternative ways to teach. Besides, schools should always be supportive and provide reward for teachers’ innovative instruction.
Another factor which teachers considered important is students’ motivation to learn (80.4%), which has also been identified as a concern to teachers by Troia and Maddox (2004). Increasing their motivation (48.2%) was proposed as a method to ameliorate writing instruction. However, teachers might not fully realize students’
motivation so that they held three dissenting opinions about how they felt about students’ motivation to write. One third of them (29.1%) believed that students were motivated, whereas another third (38.2%) thought the other way. Still the other third (32.7%) felt uncertain. No doubt students’ motivation has become a main concern for teachers and is vital to teaching and learning. Teachers still need sustained attention to student motivation and try to strengthen their motivation by providing appropriate and effective teaching approaches.
The pressure of meeting school schedule (69.6%) is the third important factor which had impact on teaching writing. In a twenty-week semester, what teachers could normally do is to cover nine or ten lessons and to help students to take two to three regular exams. In other words, teachers have to finish a lesson in one and a half week and the rest time is spent on reviewing lessons and giving drills or practices to students. All these constrained time-pressured teachers’ ability to think about
innovative methods to enhance their teaching. You (2004) claims that heavy loads of teaching would hinder the success of their teaching.
This schedule-meeting pressure is also closely connected with test-oriented curricula in schools (60.7%). Schools focus most of time on attaining a high rate of graduates being admitted to good senior high schools. Therefore, the curriculum is mainly developed to equip students with ability to receive good scores in the entrance exam. That is, students’ grammatical and lexical knowledge are most essential to their learning. Now that writing is not tested in the exam, many schools and teachers would consider teaching it to be unnecessary or the least important.
Besides, the large number of students (66.1%) was also an important obstacle for teaching writing (Troia & Maddox, 2004). Correcting or giving feedback to student writing is time-consuming and strenuous. Especially when teachers have a class of thirty to fifty students and have three to four classes to teach every week, they cannot stick to this arduous task, which is even not required by the school and for the
entrance exam.
Teachers’ Attitudes toward Writing Assessment in the Entrance Exam.
The results of the study reveals a seemingly negative attitude of teachers toward testing writing in the entrance exam because only one-third (35.1%) of teachers approved testing writing in the entrance exam. However, the number of approving teachers is higher than that of teachers (21.1%) who were currently teaching writing.
It is much higher than the number of teachers (8.8%) who believed that most current English teachers were teaching writing. In short, the number of teachers approving testing of writing surpasses the number of teachers who were currently teaching writing. Therefore, it might be misleading if we judge teachers’ attitude toward writing instruction simply from the number of teachers who are teaching writing.
Although testing writing did not gain much support, whether testing writing should be implemented is still worth discussing.
As we start to deliberate about the issue of assessing writing in the entrance exam, the nature of writing ability and purpose of a language test should first be taken into consideration. As Weigle (2002) states,
… the primary purpose of a language test is to make inferences about language ability. It is therefore essential, for a particular test, that we clearly specify what is meant by language ability. … We refer to the ability that we want to test as a construct…. (p. 41)
These basic considerations provide a criterion for us to judge the English test in the entrance exam. The test developer, the Committee of the Basic Competence Test, announces on the official website that the test design is based on the specifications stated in the Competence Indicators, which stress the balanced importance of the four language skills. However, the committee contradicts the statement by declaring that due to technical difficulties in administering subtests of listening, speaking, and writing, it is unlikely to test these three skills at present except the reading skill. Yet the committee doesn’t exclude the possibility of testing the skills in the future when the practical difficulties are overcome. This is how our English test turns out to be and the test is not without drawbacks. First, the test focuses exclusively on grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. In this way, the language test evaluates only part of a student’s language ability but not the whole of it. Second, the effect of washback accordingly causes schools and teachers, who are responsible for planning curricula, to emphasize those tested skills in the classroom. In the long run, this test-oriented curricula existing in most schools will make teachers to keep their interest in teaching that can help students to earn good scores in the entrance exam.
Public and Private School Teachers’ Different Perceptions of Teaching Writing Some differences in teacher attitudes and perceptions are found to be statistically significant between public and private school teachers. The differences highlight a more positive and enthusiastic standpoint private school teachers is adopting. First, half of private school teachers were teaching writing, whereas only 7% of public school teachers are teaching it. There are more teachers agreeing that teachers should teach writing. Still more private school teachers (71%) than public school teachers (39%) believed that teachers should teach writing. In terms of their curriculum design for writing instruction, more private school teachers (73%) than public school
teachers (35%) reported that their curriculum design was helpful for writing
instruction. As for the encouragement from their schools, more private school teachers (43%) believed their schools provided support for writing instruction (7%). When it comes to students’ motivation to learn to write, private school teachers (56%) were more optimistic than public school teachers (18%).
From the findings, it is assumed that more private schools and teachers are putting writing teaching into action than public school teachers. The phenomenon can be explained by factors teachers recognized as crucial to writing teaching. As
mentioned, student language proficiency and student motivation are main concerns for teachers to offer writing instruction. However, in most cases, private school students are screened and placed in classrooms when they passed the school’s self-designed entrance exams. Therefore, in a general sense, most private school students must reach a certain standard of proficiency and those in first-rate private school students are superior to most public school students as a whole. Private school teachers may not be faced with varied student language abilities and backgrounds that public school teachers would encounter. Similar language proficiency causes fewer problems for teachers and private school teachers may find teaching writing more
feasible. Especially in first-rate private schools, teachers are more motivated to teach more advanced skills in response to students’ high motivation and desire for
knowledge.
The other possible explanation for the different attitudes public and private school teachers held toward writing teaching may be due to their different motivation to strive for good achievement in teaching and student learning. Private school teachers are under greater pressure of instilling knowledge into students in an effective and comprehensible way. They often feel more threat of being dismissed because they are hired on a year-over-year basis. Therefore, students’ learning and successful achievement become more crucial and act as a guarantee to hold teachers’
job. Besides, the better students perform, the more respect teachers can get from their peers and schools.
With more support from schools and teachers’ willingness to teach writing, students in private schools definitely receive more training in the writing skill than those in public schools. They are more capable of communicating and expressing themselves in written texts. On the other hand, they are also more prepared for writing tasks they will encounter in senior high school and a writing test in the entrance exam for colleges.
Pedagogical Implications
Based on the major findings of the study, the following implications are proposed for writing instruction at junior high school. First, teachers are advised to take in-service training in updated writing theories and approaches. As teachers indicated, they felt the need or were willing to enhance their writing instruction. Only when they are informed of the updated knowledge, are they able to apply it and benefit students. In addition, they should also be encouraged to receive knowledge or
training in writing evaluation. Although most teachers disapproved writing assessment in the entrance exam, they should be required to design writing tasks for students to practice and monitor students’ learning progress.
Second, with heavy workload, teachers are unable to receive training or attend workshops of writing instruction. Writing instruction is also time-consuming and painstaking. Only when the workload is lighted can teachers have energy to undergo any training and have more time to undertake writing activities, such as designing writing tasks, implementing writing instruction, evaluating students writing, and giving feedback to students in classroom or in teacher-student conferences. Thus, the Ministry of Education and every school should review teachers’ workload. The straightforward ways to ease their workload are to cut down the class size and to curtail the teaching hours per week.
Third, as teachers indicated that writing ability is actually important to junior high students, teachers should be encouraged to integrate writing activities into the regular English instruction. Writing no doubt still remains important in language learning and it should not be abandoned just because the skill is not tested in the entrance exam.
Fourth, since teachers tended to avoid teaching writing, the Ministry of
Education and district educational bureaus should encourage teachers to teach it in a vigorous way. The ministry and bureaus should seriously look at the issues or difficulties involved in writing instruction and assist teachers in tackling them.
Finally, some practical problems have been identified in the study, which should help novice teachers visualize what challenges they would encounter. Teacher
education can also help novice teachers prepare for the joys and sorrows in their career. The study is expected to help both novice teachers and teacher educators, who can benefit from the thoughts and experiences provided by in-service teachers.
Limitations of the Study
A major limitation to the study is the limited size of the research population, especially the number of male teachers. Clearly, this inhibits generalizability of the results. The interpretative comments about the teachers’ perceptions and attitudes reflect only tendencies found in these research sites. In conclusion, a larger population is required for future research to thoroughly understand teachers’ perceptions. But, this study at least can stimulate other researchers’ interest and further research into this topic.
Suggestions for Future Study
The problems and issues identified in the study are expected to draw researchers’
attention to teachers’ practical difficulties in classroom. Other researchers can then look more deeply into the issues, provide useful assistance for teachers, and design measures to improve the current writing teaching and learning. Besides, hopefully this study can trigger researchers’ interest in examining the current state of curriculum design in junior high schools. A more solid and large-scale research can be conducted to examine the current curriculum regionally or nationally.
This study has gathered some information about teachers’ viewpoints of writing instruction; however, the research in students’ perceptions of writing experience and instruction is still missing. Therefore, students’ perceptions should be considered in order to help teachers and schools understand their students’ needs. Teachers and schools would have a better chance of designing interesting and appropriate instructional practices.
Conclusion
Writing instruction has been ignored in junior high school and indeed involves
many tricky issues. However, teachers should not avoid it by deliberately perceiving written communication to be unwanted and needless; teachers should not deprive students of the opportunity to learn to write. Instead, teachers should actively look into those problems or challenges associated with writing teaching and learning. They should also be open-minded so as to receive more training and information about updated pedagogies and theories. On the other hand, teachers are unable to fight against preconceived notions and conventions by themselves but need support from governments, schools, their peers, students and parents. Governments and schools should encourage teachers to overcome any obstacles and actively offer necessary assistance. With their support, teachers are able to improve themselves and then benefit their students.
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