Writing in the Hong Kong secondary classroom: Teachers ...

[Pages:16]Writing in the Hong Kong Secondary Classroom: Teachers' Beliefs and Practices

Icy Lee Douglas College, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of an investigation into secondary teachers beliefs and practices regarding writing. The study makes use of a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews to elicit: (1) teachers views of students abilities in different aspects of writing; (2) teachers self-reported practices in the classroom; and (3) teachers beliefs about the teaching and learning of writing. The findings of the survey reveal that there exists a gap between teachers beliefs and practice. Although most of the teachers think that discourse coherence is essential to writing instruction, the findings suggest that they primarily attend to grammar in their evaluation of students writing and in their own teaching. The paper concludes that teachers need to be made aware of their role as writing teachers rather than language teachers.

Introduction

There is compelling evidence in ESL writing research that teachers predominantly attend to low-level features in student writing. Over a decade ago, Lauer (1984) attributed this to the "powerful sense of dissonance" between teachers "responsibility to teach writing and the inadequacy of their understanding and training in doing so" (p.21). The problem about teacher ineptitude, however, does not seem to have improved over the last decade1. More recently, Reid (1993) has remarked that the teaching of ESL writing is negatively affected by "the lack of experience and knowledge about teaching composition among teachers and researchers" (p.22). In Hong Kong, doubts have also been raised about the pedagogic competence of teachers in the teaching of writing. A local survey conducted with secondary teachers of Hong Kong in 1991 has indicated that teachers rate "writing" as their weakest competency (compared with other language skills) both in terms of proficiency and teaching (Hirvela & Law, 1991). Lis (1996) analysis of Hong Kong teacher comments on secondary students compositions has

1 Corbetts (1996) view of the ,,enhanced professionalism of composition teachers in recent years may be valid in the United States but not in the Hong Kong context.

Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 3,1 (1998); pp. 61?76

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shown that teachers overwhelmingly focus on grammar and mechanics, responding to students texts typically as "a set of discrete and individual sentences" (p.98). Chows (1997) study suggests that secondary teachers are overly concerned with grammar and mechanics in their rating of students essays. In the ESL classroom, writing is generally considered to be another way to teach and reinforce grammar (Reid, 1993).

In order to improve teachers pedagogic competence in the writing classroom, more information has to be obtained about teachers beliefs, their knowledge of writing and of the teaching of writing, as well as their practices. One way to obtain such information is to make use of teachers self-reports through questionnaires and interviews. This paper presents and discusses the findings of a survey about secondary teachers beliefs and practices regarding writing2. The survey makes use of a questionnaire and follow-up interviews to elicit information about the following:

1. Teachers evaluation of students writing abilities in different aspects of writing;

2. Teachers self-reports of the practices they use in the writing classroom;

3. Teachers beliefs about the teaching of writing.

The survey: subjects and procedure

A questionnaire was designed for the survey, piloted with 10 secondary teachers, and then revised (see Appendix). The questionnaires were distributed to the teachers taking the In-Service Course for Secondary Teachers of English (1996-97) held by the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), as well as the Postgraduate Certificate in Education Course (parttime) at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Twenty-seven teachers from the HKIEd course and 74 teachers from the HKU course completed the questionnaires. A brief profile of these 101 teachers (68 female, 33 male) is provided as follows:

70% of the teachers have teaching experience of less than 5 years; 20% have 6-10 years experience, and 10% have over 10 years of experience.

84% of the teachers have a Bachelors degree.

2 This survey is part of a larger study (see Lee, forthcoming), and it provides contextual information to show that a viable case exists for that study.

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32% of the teachers have a degree in English. 28% of the teachers have a Teachers Certificate (TC), Postgraduate

Certificate in Education (PGCE), or Diploma in Education (Dip.Ed) (i.e. teacher-trained). 14% of the teachers majored in English in TC, PGCE or Dip.Ed (i.e. subject-trained).

Telephone interviews were conducted with 10 of the teachers (about 10% of the total number of subjects) who volunteered to take part. The interviews asked the teachers to elaborate on (1) their students writing abilities, and (2) their own writing practices. Each interview lasted approximately 15 minutes, was recorded, transcribed, and salient comments summarized.

Questionnaire Results

Teachers' Evaluation of Students' Abilities in Different Aspects of Writing

The teachers were asked to respond to a 5-point Likert scale (very good, good, satisfactory, poor, and very poor) to evaluate their students abilities in different aspects of writing. Table 1 shows that the means range from 3.4 to 3.79 (5 being very poor), that is, the majority of teachers tend to find students writing ability satisfactory or poor.

Table 1: Teachers Views of Students Writing Abilities: Overall Means (F1-7)

I think my students ability in ... is

developing the main topic of an essay. paragraphing an essay. using connectives in writing. maintaining the focus of an essay (i.e. without digressing). developing a paragraph systematically. developing the overall structure of an essay. establishing the context for an essay. developing ideas logically. using appropriate vocabulary. linking the sub-topics with the main topic of an essay. writing grammatically correct English.

Mean*

3.4 3.4 3.46 3.46

Standard Deviation

0.88 0.88 0.88 0.89

3.48

0.88

3.56

0.9

3.59

0.92

3.60

0.82

3.64

0.86

3.68

0.87

3.79

0.94

*Mean: 1 is very good; 5 is very poor.

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The results suggest that teachers are least satisfied with students ability to "write grammatically correct English", and by contrast they are more satisfied with students ability to handle the discourse-related aspects of writing, such as "developing the main topic", and "developing the overall structure" of an essay. The findings seem to indicate that "grammar" is the teachers major concern in their evaluation of students writing, and this is consistent with the prevalent view that teachers perennial concern in the writing classroom is with students ability to write grammatical English.

Teachers' Writing Practices

In this section, teachers were asked to respond to a 5-point Likert scale (very often, often, sometimes, rarely, and never) to describe how often they teach a certain aspect of writing. Table 2 shows that the overall means range from 2.03 to 2.99 (1 being very often), indicating a general tendency towards "often" and "sometimes".

Table 2: Teachers Writing Practices: Overall Means (F1-7)

I teach students how to

write grammatically correct English. use appropriate vocabulary in writing. develop the introduction of an essay. develop the main topic of an essay. structure an essay into paragraphs. establish a context for writing. develop the overall structure of the text. develop the conclusion of an essay. develop topic sentences. link sub-topics with the main topic. use connectives in writing. foster logical linkage between propositions. anticipate reader expectations in writing.

Mean*

2.03 2.17 2.21 2.28 2.40 2.41 2.45 2.53 2.60 2.71 2.83 2.93 2.99

Standard Deviation

0.75 0.88 0.83 0.64 0.82 0.81 0.83 1.05 0.92 0.84 0.92 0.69 0.75

*Mean: 1 is very often; 5 is never.

These findings suggest that the teachers claim that they often or sometimes teach different aspects of writing. "Writing grammatically correct English" is found to be the most frequently taught, followed by "using appropriate vocabulary in writing". By comparison, areas pertaining to the discourse level, such as linking sub-topics with main topic, fostering logical linkage between propositions, and anticipating reader expectations in writing, are

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given less attention. These findings corroborate existing views in the literature that teachers are putting more focus on low-level features than discourse features in their teaching of writing. Hayward and Wilcoxon (1990) have specifically pointed out that teachers in Hong Kong "have come up through a system that pays no special attention to the problem of global coherence in writing" (p.27).

Teachers' Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing

Teachers in this section were asked to respond to a number of forced choice (yes/no) questions. Some of the findings can throw light on teachers beliefs about the teaching of writing (in italics are extracts from the questionnaire statements):

About 61% of the teachers think that the focus of writing instruction should be on helping students produce grammatically accurate English.

About 90% of the teachers think that helping students understand how a text hangs together as a unified whole is essential to writing instruction.

Teachers seem to be of two minds - they think that both grammar and textual coherence are essential to writing instruction, with more teachers opting for textual coherence than grammar. When juxtaposed with the major findings about teacher practices in the previous section, a gap between teachers beliefs and their practices can be revealed. Although the findings seem to indicate a stronger belief in textual coherence than grammar in writing instruction, the teachers own practices are more geared towards the teaching of grammar. Such a discrepancy can be explained in a number of ways. It may be possible that students grammar in writing is so faulty that teachers feel the urgent need to concentrate on the teaching of grammar in the writing classroom. It could also be plausible that teachers themselves are not sufficiently equipped with the strategies to handle the teaching of writing at the discourse level. More fundamentally, as suggested by Sengupta and Falvey (forthcoming), teachers perceptions of L2 writing are predominantly shaped by their classroom context (e.g. the examination-oriented curriculum, top-down curricular practice which presses for more error corrections by teachers) which is not sensitive to the discourse-related and cognitive factors within L2 writing.

Some of the teachers beliefs can also indicate the nature of their knowledge about the teaching of writing.

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About 87% of the teachers think that teaching students how to divide an essay into the introduction, body, and the conclusion is the most useful way to help them structure an essay.

The results show that most of the teachers are circumscribed by the traditional focus on the tripartite structure (introduction-body-conclusion) in the teaching of text organization, the effectiveness of which has been questioned by Sengupta (1996) and Lee and Falvey (1996). Teachers, on the other hand, seem to have a more informed view of the role of connectives in creating coherence:

About 35% think that the teaching of connectives is the most effective way to help students create coherence in writing.

The results could show that Hong Kong teachers may have gradually come to realize the erroneous focus that has been put on the teaching of connectives (see e.g. Crewe, 1990).

Regarding ways to help students improve writing, teachers think that student practice is important for improvement in writing:

About 76% of the teachers think that the most effective way to help students is to engage them in frequent writing practice.

Teachers also believe that their writing instruction has to be explicit and specific in order to help students improve their writing:

About 77% of the teachers think that students need explicit and specific guidance in order to improve their writing.

Rather than leaving students to struggle on their own by asking them to write more, teachers think that students need explicit guidance and help in order to write better. This is in line with views in the literature that students need "more specific definitions and sequential, task-dependent exercises" (Johns, 1986: p.248) in order to learn to write effectively, and that teachers need "more extensive treatment of textual concerns" (Silva, 1993: p.671) in their teaching of writing.

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Teacher Beliefs versus Practices

The last section of the questionnaire contains four multiple choice questions asking about teacher beliefs and practices - mainly to cross-check teachers answers in the previous sections. The results are as follows:

About 77% of the teachers think that the main goal of writing instruction is to help students express and organize ideas logically and coherently, and only 9% of the teachers think that the main goal of writing instruction is to help students write grammatical English.

About 57% of the teachers think that their major emphasis in teaching is on helping students see how the whole text hangs together, while only 26% of them think that their major emphasis is on helping students acquire a range of grammatical patterns and structures.

About 42% of them think their students immediate need is to learn how to develop coherence in writing, compared with 25% who think they need to learn how to write grammatically accurate English.

About 49% of them think that overall coherence is the most important criterion in evaluating student essays. 22.8% opt for the range and appropriateness of vocabulary and sentence structures, and 14% for the accuracy of language structures.

The results of this section consistently show that teachers believe that textual coherence is more important than grammar and vocabulary in writing, writing instruction, and writing assessment. However, such a belief is not translated in their own practice. As indicated in the other sections of the questionnaire, teachers are mostly concerned with grammar in their evaluation of students writing, and they focus on grammar and vocabulary most frequently in their teaching. It is interesting to note that in a forced choice question (in the previous section), "grammar" is rated highly, as 61% of the teachers say that the focus of writing instruction should be on helping students produce grammatically accurate English. However, in a multiple-choice question (in the present section), "grammar" is rated as less important when it is juxtaposed with "coherence". Such a contradiction may reveal that despite teachers constant focus on grammar, they somehow know the relative importance of coherence and grammar in the teaching and learning of writing, and therefore in a multiple-choice question, they might choose the socially acceptable answer (i.e. coherence).

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Results of follow-up interviews

In the interviews, grammar was pointed out by all the teachers as the most problematic area in students writing, and when asked about the overall coherence of students writing, the majority of teachers said that students did not write very coherently. The interview data largely confirm the questionnaire results in that grammar is teachers predominant concern in their teaching of writing. Although the questionnaire data suggest that teachers seem to be more satisfied with students writing ability at the discourse level, from the interviews it is clear that teachers do not have a high opinion of students control of discourse in writing. Interestingly, lower form teachers (Forms 1-3) tended to believe that writing instruction in lower forms should focus on grammar and vocabulary, and that the teaching of organization and coherence should be left to upper secondary teachers. Such a polarization of the teaching of grammar and discourse for lower and upper forms respectively is, however, highly questionable. Zamel (1985) has rightly pointed out that "teachers overwhelmingly view themselves as language teachers rather than writing teachers" (p.86). There is indeed an urgent need for secondary teachers to re-consider their focus and priorities in the teaching of writing, and especially for lower form teachers to pay more attention to discourse features in the classroom.

The interviews also asked teachers to describe their own writing practices, which suggest that teachers simply mention or remind students of certain important features of writing before an assignment (e.g. the requirements of the task), or go through unsatisfactory parts of students essays during teacher feedback, mostly relating to grammar. The interview data can therefore throw light on the nature of the teachers writing practices asked in the questionnaire (which suggests that teachers teach different aspects of writing quite frequently). The kind of teaching which teachers engage in, it may be suggested, is more haphazard than systematic. Although the questionnaire findings in another section indicate that a lot of teachers believe that writing instruction should be explicit, the interview data do not seem to suggest that the teachers engage in explicit teaching of writing, where the teacher "tells, shows, models, demonstrates, teaches the skill to be learned" (Baumann, 1983: p.287).

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