Writing challenges

An investigation into the educators’ and learners’ perceptions of the writing skills among Grade 6 learners indicates that the majority of principals (83%, = 0.0001), teachers (71%,

= 0.0019), and learners (54%, p = 0.0171) agree with the statements that writing in

English is a challenge to learners. Additional evidence from the questionnaire for these perceptions is that the majority of principals (67%, = 0.0412) and more than half of

teachers (58.4%, p = 0.1241) disagree with the statement, English motivates my pupils’ writing. In order to investigate the pupils’ writing challenges and understand the kinds of writing difficulties learners face, the researcher examined 56 samples of the learners’ scripts that the researcher collected from a class during the observation processes. These scripts are not primary data, they were collected because they were a part of the lesson that the researcher was observing and because the teacher used this activity to evaluate the lesson. With the teacher’s permission the researcher examined the copies in the classroom and was allowed to photocopy a sample of the scripts that the researcher needed. The activity was performed individually and learners were instructed to write as much as they could on the following topics:

1. As a future leader, explain how you can encourage the community to reduce poverty. 2. Suppose your parents live in the highland region. Explain how you can help them to

survive in that area.

3. Explain the importance of lakes for the people. 4. Name four physical features in Rwanda.

On analysis of the scripts, the researcher was interested in the structure of the responses and language used to respond. Most scripts comprised incomplete sentences and phrases. The next script is an example:

Figure 5.2: Example of incomplete sentences in the learners’ writing

Apart from the last topic, all the other topics required explanations in full sentences but the responses in the example are half sentences or phrases. The enumerated responses reveal that learners mention the key concepts that they can remember, but are unable to put them in full sentences. For instance, in trying to answer the second question, the learner writes ‘to plant the trees’ and ‘to giging a terraces’ [learner wanted to say ‘digging terraces’], which shows that the learner knows key words for the answer, i.e., plant trees and dig terraces, but there is an inability to write those key words in a grammatically correct English sentence. Similar difficulties occur in responses to topic three.

In general, the above example illustrates avoidance of writing a full sentence with a subject, verb, and object in English on the one hand, but, on the other hand, the scripts also show that there are some learners who can make sentences with subject, verb, and object, but fail to write them in paragraph form, or enumerate. Consider the next example:

Figure 5.3: Example of enumerated sentences

This learner can write more complete sentences in English than the one in the previous example. The learner writes words correctly and can make long sentences as in ‘You tell people to be in cooperatives, to work community work every the end of the month’; ‘I must to tell them to put the children in schools to study and to tell them to love your country and your president’; and ‘I can tell that parent to move away of that highland because when rainfall is raining they can die’. The sentences the learner provides for each topic indicates that she has all the necessary information to respond to the topic. This is an unusually good script that the researcher found different from all the others. However, the learner does not seem to be able to organise sentences into paragraphs while writing a paragraph is taught in the subject of English (NCDC, 2010b). The data shows writing problems emanating from both language and lack of writing skills.

In terms of language, most learners’ scripts comprised one or more words of Kinyarwanda or French as the next example illustrates:

Figure 5.4: Learner CS in writing

The above example highlights how the lack of an English vocabulary compels learners to CS to compensate for the missing word or phrase in another language. The above example comprises four instances of CS namely: ‘To provide centre de santé’ (French for Health centre); ‘Guhinga amaterasi’ (to build terraces); ‘Tugaca imirwanyasuri kugira ngo imvura idatwara ubutaka’ (We dig waterholes to avoid soil erosion), and ‘Help abasare kubona akazi’ (Help sailors to obtain jobs). This finding is significant to this study mainly because, while educators use CS in class talk, they do not support CS in writing, as will be shown in Chapter Six.

Except for figure 5.3, the examples in the scripts indicate that a lack of lexico-grammatical knowledge is likely to be one of the factors contributing to the learners’ difficulties in writing in English. This is also stated in interviews with principals and teachers as follows:

(i) Many pupils fail their written tests because they cannot write proper English...if they don’t know words in English, they leave blanks or write Kinyarwanda words for the missing English vocabulary!...we don’t accept that though! (PRS1).

(ii) … eh...the time of writing notes, learners copy from the blackboard. When you give them a dictation that’s when you see that they don’t know how words are written. They need practice (TRS2).

(iii) They can’t write what they don’t know to speak! They can’t speak, they can’t write! They need vocabulary! (TRS1).

These examples show that most learners at primary school cannot write correct English sentences. For the principal, even if switching between languages when writing tests is not permitted, there are learners who write Kinyarwanda because of their weak English vocabulary. As for teachers, learners’ writing difficulties are due to the lack of practice and shortage of vocabulary.

Research shows that writing is a continuous practice that requires the learner to have basic knowledge of the language that enables him/her to match the pronunciation and spelling during the writing process (Colorado, 2008). Observations of lessons indicate that learners at primary schools face problems of writing in English, and one of the causes is their inability to associate pronunciation and spelling of English words when the teacher dictates them or asks them to write words they have heard before but have not learnt to write well. For instance, in one of the lessons, learners always waited for the teacher to write on the black board before they wrote in their note books. Another important observation referred to in Section 5.2.1 was that learners could understand the words if the teacher had written them on the blackboard. This confirms the learners’ difficulties to match the spelling and pronunciation, and this seems to be the reason why writing English words is a challenge for them.

The focus group interviews reveal the learners’ reliance on the teacher’s notes on the blackboard.

(i) Dictations are very difficult because we don’t know the words the teacher is telling us (US1/Lr4).

(ii) What the teacher reads and what we write are different; in a dictation quiz I get the spelling wrong (RS1/Lr2).

(iii) The spelling and pronunciation of words in English confuse me many times. For example when the teacher gives us a dictation I don’t catch the words, but when he writes them on the black board or spells them I find that I know them (US1/Lr4). (iv) When the teacher doesn’t write on the blackboard, I don’t know how the words are

spelt (RS2/Lr5).

These interviews indicate that the writing challenges that learners face result from the lack of exposure to English. As the statements reveal, it is difficult for learners to write English without the teacher’s support. It seems that learners are not able to link the pronunciation of words and their spelling and, therefore, need the teacher to write them on the board so that they can copy them. This is an indication that learners need more exposure to vocabulary and grammar to be confident in writing English correctly.

A comparison of the findings from rural and urban schools indicates no difference (p = 0.1367) between the perceptions that educators have towards the writing challenges that English causes learners in the classroom. However, the results from learners indicate a significant difference (p < 0.0001) between rural and urban schools where rural school learners seem to be faced with more writing challenges than urban school learners. Drawing on literature, writing English as a foreign language requires knowledge and skills that develop as learners progress in the language (Donald et al., 1992; Cummins, 1999; Krashen, 2006). The fact that learners at Grade 6 level have not developed their comprehension, speaking, and reading skills, as seen in the previous sections, is an indication that they are likely to struggle when writing English words and sentences.