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Acquiring Skills in a New Language Essay

Decent Essays

Introduction

A fundamental aspect of acquiring skills in a new language is the ability to communicate messages in writing. For a teacher of English as a second language, nurturing students to develop sound writing skills is crucial to the success of the student both as a learner of the language, and their skills communication skills in reading, speaking and even listening in English. The natural ability of native speakers to communicate in a given language does not automatically indicate proficiency in their writing skills, which must be acquired.

The psycholinguist Eric Lenneberg noted that writing is a culturally specific and learned behaviour (Brown, H.D, p334). Consequently, writing skills are important to developing a …show more content…

In addition, writing requires a sound understanding of English expressions, idioms and culture to be able to communicate effectively and accurately.

There have been a variety of methodologies of varying effectiveness developed and used for teaching writing skills. Thomas Gorman critiques some of these methods (Celce-Murcia, M, p189-199). In my view, and the view expressed in numerous literature, none of these methods are in itself complete and sufficient for a proper mastery of the ability to write effectively in English. In addition to a solid foundation in grammar and sentence composition skills, a well-rounded approach to teaching and learning skills in written English will probably draw on aspects of all these methodologies and be flexible enough to be adapted to the requirements and aptitudes of the learner (Prabhu, N.S).

The Free Expression and Controlled Expression Methods

According to Gorman, the controlled expression method teaches students to substitute words in sentence construction, then sentences in paragraph construction, and finally to compose whole paragraphs and essays or stories.# The method is restraining because it teaches writing as the manipulation of fixed patterns which are learnt by imitation. In contrast, the free expression method motivates students to produce freely and extensively large quantities of writing without regard for the quality of the writing or revising it for errors.

In my view, an

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