Writing Skills free essay sample

Belcher Braine (1995) and Jordan (1997) add that not only EFL students with lower English proficiency, but students of higher learning level in tertiary education also have problems in mastering the writing skill. In addition, Bacha (2002) suggests that non-native English learners primarily have more difficulties in writing than other three linguistics skills. As influenced by the culture of the mother tongue, language learners may find it difficult to acquire writing skills through changing the vocabulary and sentence structures. Zhang (2001) states that many learners learn to write by translating words and filtering meanings from one language into another. When encountering academic or formal writing, the learner will be beaten by strong sense of depress for unable to organize the writing structure. However, even the native speakers need systematic guide and instructions to learn to write. Hence, it is worthwhile to analyze the reasons for writing being perceived as the most difficult skill. EFL teacher master a series of approach to teach writing which are the product approach, the process approach and the genre approach. We will write a custom essay sample on Writing Skills or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Genre approach has become the contemporary dominant teaching approach and has aroused many popular issues (Myskow Gordon, 2009). However it is still controversial. This particular essay aims to explore the possible reasons for writing skills being the most difficult skill to master. Meanwhile put emphasis on the genre approach to evaluate how helpful it is for students to master English writing skills with reference to specific teaching material and contexts. 1. 2 Structure of the essayThis essay consists of three parts with a conclusion and references follows. Section one introduces the importance of exploring writing difficulties and evaluates the genre approach. Section two explores the reasons that writing is regarded as the most challenging skill to master, which in general can be divided into the requirement for the learners and the process of writing. Section three explains how and to what extent genre approach helps to enhance the writing skill by means of some teaching materials and teach contexts. 2. Exploring the writing skillThere are various factors that contribute to explain the difficulties in mastering writing skills, and several aspects should be taken into consideration including nature of writing, difficulties in writing process and the requirements and motivation of the learners. 2. 1 Nature of writing Gass (1997) summarizes that the four skills of language learning can be divided into input and output skills. Listening and reading belong to input skills because these two skills involve the processes of taking language in which means absorbing new linguistics knowledge and technique.And speaking and writing belong to output skills because these two skills involve the processes of putting language out which means apply the knowledge and technique into practical using. For language learners, input skills of a language could be regarded as the foundation of the output ones (Gass, 1997). Hence one can see that learners are not able to speak or write a whole sentence if they have not acquired the basic knowledge of the vocabulary and structures of the sentence because learning the vocabularies and sentence structures is an input process.In other words, output skills are more advanced than input skills. Therefore, in this sense, output skills (speaking and writing) are more difficult than input skills (reading and listening). Since both writing and speaking skills are output skills, there should be a further analysis to define which is more difficult. Writing and speaking are two entirely different forms of output skill. To begin with, people learn the native language under the control of their instinct that means everyone masters how to pronounce and speak a whole sentence before they can write.With the natural speaking circumstances, native speakers of English spontaneously and automatically learn to speak under a rather early age. However, it is almost impossible to learn writing automatically from a natural circumstance for native speakers. It requires somebody with certain knowledge of writing techniques to teach them and usually under a rather late age. Speaking can be regarded as the basis of writing. To conclude, learning speaking is more spontaneous and previous than learning writing.