Post 247: Do students avoid writing because they are afraid people will laugh at what they write?

Do students avoid writing because they are afraid people will laugh at what they write?

During the Grammar/Translation era of the 60's and 70's, most teachers during that period would teach reading and writing by correcting student errors.

The teacher would correct your reading errors if you mispronounce what you read aloud in class hoping that by correcting your speech errors, you learn proper mainstream English and you learn to associate the proper phonic rules to proper speech.

The teacher would correct grammatical errors on papers in student writing without giving any other feedback giving the student the impression that his writing is filled with errors and has no merit whatsoever.

The drawback of over teacher correction is that students develop an inferiority complex and think that they are bad readers or bad writers. As a result, students avoid reading or develop a dislike for reading or students avoid writing or develop a dislike for writing.

It is no wonder students with these kinds of insecurities will think that people will laugh at what they write. When all a teacher can do is harp on errors, then it is no wonder students stop reading and writing.

I get students all the time who complain to me that they took English last because their writing teacher in grammar school told them they are bad writers by filling their papers with nothing but red marks. Students become afraid to take risks and want to avoid chaos by avoiding writing.

Many times, my job becomes helping students gain confidence in writing by giving compliments or more positive remarks on student papers.

Therefore, instead of just focusing on student errors, I also make the effort to comment on what the student did right. "John, I love the way you wrote our thesis statement."  "Jane, you write so creatively in your use of similes."

By the end of my writing class, students say, "Thanks Prof. Ho for being such a great writing teacher. I never knew I could be a good writer."  or "Thanks Prof. Ho for making English a 'tolerable' subject' and mostly I get grateful student comments on how I helped them gain confidence in their writing by being so upbeat and positive in my teacher feedback and for being so engaging in the Discussion Forums.

Be positive and engaging in your teacher feedback to help students gain back their confidence and mojo for writing.