Beginning the action research

[Sylvia Jones]

Hello everyone,
Here in Ethiopia, the two groups will be close to actually starting
their research because their target students, the freshmen/women will
be beginning another term or semester soon.
For the last six months, I have been working with teachers at all
levels of the education system here. I have worked with primary school
English language teachers, secondary English language teachers and
with teachers in CTE colleges. I have also examined the writing of all
these groups. This has confirmed to me the importance of the research
project and the real need for a dynamic, up to date pedagogy in
writing.
You do not have to take my word for this. In the recent national
assessment of primary school English language teachers, many of the
examiners marking the writing paper made telling comments after
finishing marking the papers. These markers were all Ethiopian and
selected via a writing test from CTE colleges and senior secondary
schools. I will share some of their comments with you because they
show what senior Ethiopian educators feel about the state of writing
and emphasise the importance of the research project.
"Writing was very poor in all questions. The problem was not the
questions but, I suspect, very very little writing practice in
schools and colleges. These results signal something very important
and a weakness"
"Writing skill is the forgotten skill. Much more efforts should be
given for writing skill".
"More sustainable and extensive work should be done to overcome this
writing test."

It seems that the research will be of great use to the wider
educational establishment.
Looking forward to seeing the research ideas
Sylvia

[Ross Graham]

Thanks for this, Sylvia.

 

I was struck by the comment of the examiners about 'very, very little writing practice in schools and colleges'.

I wonder if the same is the case in universities. Perhaps some of our Ethiopian colleagues could comment on this.

 

I also think that lack of writing practice in schools must affect motivation for writing tasks at university.

How can motivation be ignited? This is a real problem which the present rigid syllabus cannot address.

Only answer, it seems to me, is an opening up of the approach to writing so that it comes to be a medium

for students' own ideas rather then a production line. The academic writing course will need some rewriting to

accommodate this.

 

Ross