JUNE 1st TIMED WRITING
Dear Students,
As I mentioned in class today, please type out today's 30-minute timed writings (on difficulties writing in academic English at the the Taiwanese university) in exactly the same way that you wrote them, with mistakes and all. Please do not put your names or identifying information on your submission.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing you next week.
RJ
posted by Robert E. Johanson | 6/01/2005 05:37:00 PM
8 Comments:
As we all are chinese students;therefore,our learning background must be not the same with the native peoples. Whenever we are writing we may have some problem in our writing.So, it is really difficulties write as a native writer of english.since we are a child, we started learning about chinese in our childhood.The point is that we not needs to put subject or verb in each chinese sentense. To compare, english writing we have to pay more attention on grammar structure in each sentenses. It is about grammar problems between two cultures. So it also the reason that make our chinese students can not write as a native people. Because of learning background not the same, sometimes we will use the wrong words in our writing.And then,we will make the reader think it is such as strange sentenses. It is also make the reader misunderstand what you want to express.Therefore, I think that we have to learn more words and use into the right place. And then, we also have to pay attention with the grammar structure. However,we can learn some writing skill from the native people. I think it must be better to improve our writing skill.Finally, I also thnk that it is more important for us how to learn and write a correct or beautiful sentense in our paper.
Actually, I have learnt English since I was an elementary school student. As a Taiwanese child, especially non-native English speaker, I have found that at the beginning of contacting with foreign language, memorizing a numorous of vocabularies is really like becoming a millionaire. That is, it is possible to memorize vocabularies but it requires hard work.
When I came to high schiool, the content of English subject became more complicated and difficult than in junior high school. Every aspect of learning English, such as grammar, phrases, paragraphs, vocabularies and so on seemed to have a distance to study well for me. Surly, I started to have a new challenge of learning English. That is writing English composition. I had to claim that writing a paragraph even a full paged composition in English was a totally new sphere that I have ever encountered.
As a non-native writer of English I tried to express my idea in non-naitve thinking. On the other word, some stuffs or sentences I wrote and thought interesting to foreigners, native speakers did not think so. They could not figure my words, my humors out. Instead of commenting it "dull." Second, in order to write a good and well-organized article, I had to learn as many words as possible and tried to make my sentences as clear and neutral-simple as possible. In this way, at least foreigners could easily understand what I am talking about.
In conclusion, I had to make my article each paragraph connected. Therefore, the composition will look stronger and nicer.
Anonymity said:
My major difficulties as a non-native writer of English at the Taiwanese university are the different manner of seeing things and the barrier of different languages.
Firstly, writings in English and Chinese, my mother tongue, are very different. For example, when I was in my elementary school, students were learning how to write an essay by keeping required weekly journals. In those weekly journals, we usually described one empressive thing happened during the week and in the end giving our reaction and reflection on it. This is the most basic type of Chinese essay that I have learned, and it influences me a lot. For instance, writing those essays emphasizes much on conveying feelings and less ideas. On the contrast, after I started to receive a real professional training of writing , which is after I entered Dong Hwa, I discovered that English writing emphasizes on ideas and organization very much. For example, topic sentences are crucial to every paragraph; unlike Chinese, normally we give the main ideas of each paragraph last. Besides, writing of English focuses a lot on detailed information and facts. Sometimes it is very difficult for me to express my ideas so thoroughly clear.
Secondly, another difficulty of writing in Ehglish as a non-native writer is that the limitation of my knowledge of this language. The most evident example is my lack of vocabulary. Lacking of vocabulary is like lacking of materials to build a strong building, an essay. Because of this weakness, I found myself often struggling in word choices, unable to find the most fitting words. Another related problem of my expressing abilities is that I often do not know how to expressing something in English. Therefore, I found that I am often stuck in the circulation of explaining sentences. I am not “expressing” ideas, but “explaining” sentences. After I explain one sentence, I need to explain the others in order to make them clear. I suppose this phenomenon means that I also have problems in sentence expressing.
To conclude, my difficulties in writing of English are the different logics of writing and my personal weaknesses of learning English. I hope that I can improve them by reading and practicing writing more.
I started learning English since I was a six-grade student in the elementary school,which was about nine years ago. At that time,I went to Jordan English Cram School to learn,and my first English teacher was a young woman who was also a Taiwanese.
With time passed by before I entered college,my English teachers were all Taiwanese.As a result,the development of my English speaking ability,writing technique,grammar concepts,and so on were based on the non-English teachers teachings. Everytime when I write a composition and hand in it to my foreign teacher,there comes a big problem;he seems cannot understand my sentence structure and the usage of words. Therefore,there are always a lot of corrections on my paper which really make me feel fraustrated.
Fortunately,after being getting along with the native English teachers for the past two years,I gradually realize how to write better and make less mistakes. My writing style is not the same one as before. It is improved a lot.
In my opinion, it is due to the Taiwanese education of English and the foreign teachers education that make the difference. Consequently,if we learn English with native English teacher,I think our ways of writing English would be better and more native.
As a non-native writer, I have been learning English writing for at least seven years. Students in Taiwan are required to learn writing skills because they will be tested in many exams. If a student wants to reach higher educational levels, he/she must have the ability to compose essays quickly and beautifully. Take me for example, although I have learned how to write a good essay in junior high school, I am still unable to compose essays full of sufficient information in short times. To say it another way, I think my disadvantage of English writing is that I fail to finish a piece of writing in a short period of time and I do not know large amounts of vocabulary.
Besides, I feel that I cannot express my thoughts very clearly and completely in English. It is easier for me to write an essay in Chinese, but when it comes to English writing, my thoughts become disorganized. I think the major reason is that I always organize my thoughts in Chinese in the process of writing. Therefore, I need more time to translate what I have in mind to English, and it is impossible for me to translate all of my thoughts to the language that I am not familiar with.
Writing an essay, a lot of vocabulary is required. As far as I am concerned, I still lack this ability; in other words, I have to enlarge my vocabulary, especially those academic words which I will use in my academic writing. With a few amount of academic vocabulary, I often feel helpless and nervous when writing English papers or essays.
In conclusion, if I can figure out the solution for my problems, I believe that I will be better in English writing.
Wrting is not always an easy job to do, either you are native or not. No one is originally skilled at writing. As a non-native writer of Enlish, I encounter many obstacles as well as frustrations. From knowing little regarding writing to trying to conquer all the difficulties, I have made a lot of efforts and consumed much time to practice. The major difficult parts for me in writing are writing with time-limitation and making articles coherent.
I still remember how I survive from the Univercity Entrance Exam. Before the English exam, I carefully prepared topics that have high-prone to be tested. Then I looked over related materials and tried to memorize those beautiful sentences. As a result, things I wrote on my exam paper were not all by my creation. Since time writing is quite challenging for me, I may feel overwhelmed and my mind may go oblivion when I am in other big exams.
As for making my writing coherent, it is because I always care too much about "how I write." I will worry about grammar and the organization of my sentences. Further more, words that are too basic connot be accepted for me. Hence, because I cannot simply let those anxieties go, I may need more time to write a good essay.
My major difficulties in English writing lies in vocabulary.It's not easy to pick out a right word to fill in the blank of one sentence, for there are lots of synonyms with close distinctions.Besides, cultural backgrounds are worlds apart between Chinese and English language.I am always confused about how native writers would describe or what sentence pattern they often use.
Another problem of writing is the principles of English composition: simple,strong and clear, while Chinese writing needs more rheotical skills and expresses ideas inderectly.When I was a freshman in Dong Hwa University,I was hit for six in my first composition class.The Professor often corrected my works with severe comments,like "Dull!....many irrelevent sentences...", which made me lose confidence and interest in writing.
However, as Dr.Johanson of Law School said, the only thing in need to prove writing skills is more and more practice.
Generally speaking, everyone must have difficulties in doing something when it comes to certain aspects. For Taiwanese, the common obstacle we meet in our daily lives is often related to language. And for students who have to use English as a tool to prepare studies, English can sometimes be bothering beyond dispute. As far as I am concerned, when it comes to writing, it often takes me time to make my writing coherent and occasionally my writing is also off the topic.
Making my writing coherent is the main point that I am supposed to make improvements on. When I start to write, there are always a lot of thoughts hitting on me that at times I do not know how to pick up the appropriate ones. I might regard one point is fine for a paragraph and the other point is suitable for another yet ignore that the passages would be unrelated if I use distinctive points in the same composition and thus lose coherence.
The other difficulty for me to overcome when I do my writing is that sometimes my content is off the topic. I think there are two reasons to explain the situation. One reason is that if I lose the coherence first, my thoughts may lead me to write something unrelated to the topic without my notice. Another reason causing the unrelatedness of my writing may due to that I think in a Chinese way when doing an English work. Because I have to translate my thoughts into English, and sometimes they are not translated exactly, the outcome is that I decrease the accuracy of my thoughts. When I writing on the paper, I think the translation problem not only bring about the off-topic possibility, it will also produce grammatical problems.
Somebody comments that learning English is just like playing basketball, the more you practice, the better you will be, and I think learning English-writing is also the same. My major difficulties are the loss of coherence and sometimes the unrelatedness of the topic. I am not sure whether there is a way to prove those specific problems, but I believe it takes time to make improvements. And the primary thing I can do is to keep the habit of writing, by which I can gradually discover my hindrance to make coherence. I think I ought to study more writing books especially on some specific parts to solve my personal writing problems. After all, I can not be better without making effort.
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