Poor Writing in English: A Case of the Iraqi EFL learners in Misan Province

This article aims to determine why Iraqi EFL learners are weak writers. Specifically, it tests the following two hypotheses: . Iraqi EFL instructors misunderstand the writing process. . Iraqi EFL learners lack the linguistic competence in general, and practice of writing in particular. After collecting data from a teacher questionnaire, and using the Chi Square Test, results revealed that while EFL instructors misunderstand the nature of the writing process, their learners do not practice enough writing in English. Finally, some pedagogical suggestions are stated to develop EFL writing in Misan such as using innovative classroom techniques within the process approach and dealing with learners in a human fashion.


Introduction
"It is disappointing; it is terrible; it is ugly; I wish I could find one single grammatically correct sentence in their writing; they know nothing; who is to blame? How to overcome this; I don"t know!" This is what instructors of English talk about in a school meeting. Some suggest giving more grammar and writing courses to the learners; while others suggest giving an entrance exam to  A.M in Misan university.

582
Poor writing in English admit only highly qualified learners. Yes, it is true that writing is difficult as it requires intense, active thinking throughout a continuous productive process in which thoughts and ideas are transferred into written communication, but not just words and letters on paper. However, more often than not, students "believe that writing is a natural gift rather than a learned skill" (Langan, ). They may add that they do not have the talent of writing. As a result, these students do not write and do not try their best. to do so. Nevertheless, the good news is that writing can be mastered through practice, and all what it needs is special attention from both instructors and students.

The problem of the study
In the age of Internet, information technology and globalization, writing in English has become so important. However, it seems that many EFL instructors and supervisors still misunderstand the essence of the writing process. Many of them use traditional approaches based on memorizations and drilling. In his M.A. thesis, Abu Gazala ( ) stated that the curricula English for Iraq are full of such activities. He added that such activities are important, but they do not help as most learners are unable to produce short sentences, paragraphs and letters to friends. Therefore, this study aims at finding out the possible causes of our learners' poor writing. In other words, the researcher hypothesizes that Iraqi EFL learners are weak writers because of the following two causes (hypotheses): . Iraqi EFL instructors misunderstand the writing process.
. Iraqi EFL learners lack the linguistic competence in general, and practice of writing in particular.

Purpose of the study
This study aims at achieving the following objectives: . Investigate whether EFL instructors in Misan view writing as a process or a product. .

Definition of terms
. Poor writing: insufficient word storage to express genuine ideas on paper, and inability to produce correct spelling, grammatically and semantically correct sentences, paragraphs and other short pieces of writing. . The process approach: It views writing as an interactive, recursive process consisting of many steps where learners interact together and make peer correction, while instructors give feedback between drafts.

582
Poor writing in English

Limitations of the study
This study is limited to a sample of male and female EFL instructors from Misan Province. The study is also limited to EFL instructors in governmental junior and senior high schools. The study, furthermore, limits itself by investigating the possible writing problems of EFL learners from the point of view of their instructors only.

Literature Review
Actually, there are many approaches to teaching English composition from which instructors can choose: ) the Controlled-to-Free Approach emphasizes grammar, syntax, and mechanics, and gives preference to accuracy over fluency; ) the Free-Writing Approach emphasizes quantity of writing rather than quality, and therefore, focuses on fluency rather than accuracy; ) the Paragraph-Pattern Approach focuses on paragraph organization and development; ) the Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach focuses on writing as composed of non-separated skills that should be learned sequentially; ) the Communicative Approach emphasizes the writing and the audience, where student writers should think of themselves as real writers writing to a particular audience; and ) the Process Approach states that writing is a process of discovering and generating ideas through multiple drafts. However, understanding the nature of the writing process first, and then knowing how to teach it are of great importance. Zamel, who has a remarkable achievement in ESL writing research, states that the composing process is seen as a "non-linear, exploratory, and generative process whereby writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning" ( a: ). Accordingly, both "process" and "ideas/meaning" are always emphasized in ESL writing.
Based on this definition, EFL writing instructors need to select the most effective approach from a variety of approaches to emphasize this sense.

Poor writing in English
Brender ( ), for instance, talked about "conferencing" as an effective technique in teaching and improving learners" English composition. He mentioned six types of conferences: collaborative conferencing, small conferencing, third-person conferencing, journaling, emailing, and journaling cum emailing. He stated that this technique is "the most advantageous method for ESL students" and that "students who have three or more conferences in a term not only improve their writing ability, but also significantly improve their listening and speaking skills" (p. ). The reading writing approach is another one in which both reading and writing are integrated. Abu Rass ( ) tried out this approach with her freshman EFL students and reported that her students enjoyed it and improved their writing though they complained about the amount of reading.
To conclude, the previous approaches/techniques are undoubtedly useful; however, the present researcher believes that every teaching situation is unique.
In other words, writing instructors should select the writing approaches/techniques that work well with their students. In addition, they can integrate some techniques with the process approach as the present researcher suggested in the last chapter.
Using the most effective approach to teaching EFL writing is not enough if learners do not practice enough writing. Writing is a skill acquired only through practice. It is, like dance and sport, an activity that could be improved only through practice (Andrews, ), and through " the exposure to written texts in a natural process of communication rather than grammatical and rhetorical rules on writing" (Leki, : ). Therefore, EFL learners do not need more work with language but rather with writing. However, this practice requires that EFL learners have at least some linguistic competence because competence in the organization of written discourse develops late (El-Shafie, ). This is why

522
Poor writing in English many EFL student writers spend a long time looking for the words they need to express already existing ideas in mind.
To conclude, the previous approaches/techniques are undoubtedly useful; however, the present researcher believes that every teaching situation is unique.
In other words, writing instructors should select the writing approaches/techniques that work well with their students. In addition, they can integrate some techniques with the process approach as the present researcher suggested in the last chapter.

Sample and Data collection
The researcher obtained much support for the claims on the causes of learners" weaknesses in EFL writing from a questionnaire distributed among male and female teachers of English whom he randomly selected from many schools in Misan Province (see appendix I). The schoolteachers hold a bachelor degree in English, with -year teaching experience at both junior and senior high schools.

Procedure
At the beginning of the school year , the researcher distributed a short questionnaire among EFL schoolteachers in Misan, eliciting their response concerning their learners" weaknesses in EFL writing. The researcher used the Chi Square Test to analyze the teachers" responses on the yes/no questions in the questionnaire.

525
Poor writing in English

Results and Discussions
The first two questions in the teacher questionnaire test the first hypothesis stated above. Here is the Chi Square product for question :

Response
Observed N Expected N X Yes Q.

No
.
Twenty-four out of the schoolteachers answered, "yes" to the first question.
This difference, according to the result above is statistically significant since the Chi Square coefficient yields p value of . . So, in this case, p < . . This means that the proportion of teachers who said "yes" to the first question was much larger than the proportion of teachers who said "no". In other words, schoolteachers give their learners enough time to write many drafts, and they also give them enough feedback between drafts. Accordingly, they seem to follow the process approach in their teaching of EFL writing which is highly recommended by scholars.
Unfortunately, their simple definitions stated in the second question show that their view of writing does not exceed correct grammar and mechanics. In other words, while they view writing as a process, as shown above, they still emphasize the form over the content in their learners" writing. This emphasis was clear in their definitions, where they frequently used items such as, writing is a skill, a way to, a mechanism of, a reflection of, a system of, correct punctuations, good sentences, good spelling, suitable words, etc. Only five of them mentioned that writing is a process, two mentioned words such as "thoughts" and "ideas", while most of the definitions did not reflect how writing is carried out. Therefore, it is clear that Misan schoolteachers misunderstand the nature of the writing process.

Poor writing in English
Misan EFL instructors' narrow view of the writing process might have its roots in their mother tongue (Arabic). It is well known that Arabs in general are in love with Arabic, and when they write in Arabic, they are interested in composing a flowery language of a complicated style, even when this is at the expense of the meaning intended. Therefore, when Arab EFL instructors look for errors not for ideas, they in fact give their students the impression that writing is grammatically correct sentences; and when they give feedback at the final (only) draft, they provide their learners with a wrong definition of writing as if it were a one-way process. What I would like to conclude here is that although there are other factors that contribute in the problem of writing, most often, those teachers are responsible, and the problem begins from them not from the learners. To clarify more, let us look at the following figure: Teachers" definition of writing, Instructional approaches teachers use, Student writers" definition of writing, Student writers" writing strategies, Student writers" success/failure at writing.
According to this figure, any writing approach teachers use will depend on how the yview writing. If they view it as a product, then the product approach will be their way of teaching writing. Consequently, their students will view writing as a product, and their writing strategies will be formed accordingly. This might determine the success or failure of these learners. Here are some examples of their definitions quoted as they are stated by these teachers: --Having a good idea of the topic, arrange the ideas mentally, then write about each idea using good English.
--Writing is a system that helps students to use their vocabulary and information to write sentences good at structure and command.
--In writing, we focus on writing short paragraphs.

Poor writing in English
--Sometimes students are asked to use the mini-dictionary to find out the meaning of the same words in English.
--Writing is a skill that learn students how to write correctly.
--Writing is a mechanism in which students use it for improving their language, spelling, reading, and letter sound matching.
Question three and four in the questionnaire test the second hypothesis. Here is the product of Chi Square Test for question : No *** In the above table, the difference between the observed frequencies of "yes" and "no" (column ) and the frequencies that would be expected (column ) were statistically significant because the Chi Square coefficient yielded p values < . . This means that the proportion of teachers who said "no" to the item was much larger than the proportion of teachers who said "yes". Consequently, EFL learners in Misan do not have the sufficient competence in and practice of EFL writing. Therefore, the second hypothesis was confirmed.
The insufficient competence in and practice of EFL writing of our learners is supported by the results of the fourth question in the questionnaire. The average page number given by these teachers was page a week, which is nothing for a foreign learner who is seeking to develop his/her competence in EFL writing. Accordingly, teachers believe that their students do not practice enough writing in English, and therefore, the above assumption was confirmed. What is left in the following section is the BIG question: how should writing be taught in Poor writing in English order to solve the problem? This section includes some ideas and techniques proposed by some contemporary scholars in the field.

Summary and Suggestions
Before starting teaching, writing instructors are to be reminded that teaching is a humanistic career, and that about of learners, according to many studies, fail to learn because their human needs (love, power, freedom, etc) are not met, and therefore, they refrain from working hard (Maden, ). They also need to remember that they are not error hunters but that their job is to create non-threatening classrooms by convincing learners that they can write, that writing could be learned, and that nobody"s writing is perfect.
Writing is a skill acquired only through practice. It is, like dance and sport, an activity that could be improved through practice (Andrews, ), and through " the exposure to written texts in a natural process of communication rather than grammatical and rhetorical rules on writing" (Leki, : ). Therefore, our EFL learners do not need more work with language but rather with writing.
To ask learners to start practicing writing, "the first lesson in teaching composition is that the writer must find his or her own subject" (Graves, : ) Graves adds that the "creative energy" which is the discovery experience is not found in English textbooks, but it is in our writers" minds. Through giving choices to our student writers, we, in fact, teach them to take responsibility for their own learning, which is the only way to let them deeply engaged to their education (Rief, ). One choice that students might and should be encouraged to choose is "stories". The importance of stories in the teaching of writing lies in the fact that writing itself is personal (Graves, ). Murphy ( ) writes, The stories we tell will be deeply valuable to us, that in telling them we will define ourselves and that we know, that in learning them we will remember who we are and what teaching and learning have come to mean to us. ( ) To proceed in their teaching of writing, Misan EFL instructors need to update their knowledge by getting acquainted with the current trends in the field. The process approach to writing, for instance, has a long time been used in many parts of the world with innovative classroom techniques such as writing in silence, journal writing, free writing, reflection to generate creativity, meditation, concentration, relaxation, deep breathing, etc. Therefore, the recent research in EFL/ESL writing is very important to these teachers in order to make a shift in their definition of writing and errors. Sometimes mere reading of the recent research is not enough because in most cases, "these teachers would be less likely to abandon more traditional views of teaching writing and more likely to resist the de-emphasis on grammar characteristics of process methodologies (Leki, : ). Therefore, it is important that these teachers get some training in using the process approach in teaching writing.
When using the process approach, writing teachers can follow steps with their student writers such as topic listing, pre-writing, drafting, revision, editing, proofreading, and reflection. However, these steps are not linear because the process approach is recursive in nature. This means learners can do any of these things at any time during the process of producing their text. When writing instructors follow the process approach, learners will enjoy the interactive recursive characteristics of the approach. They will benefit from each other through beer response or peer editing groups with guidance from their instructors. In addition, they will benefit from the in between draft feedback because they will incorporate it into their writing.

Poor writing in English
Following the process approach does not mean focusing on rules of correction when evaluating student writers" composition. First of all, research show that formal grammar instructions and error correction have little effect on learners" writing quality and on their ability to reduce the number of errors in their writing (Leki, , Hartwell, ). In addition, it is believed that as learners are exposed to more of the L and practice more EFL writing, many of the errors they commit will naturally disappear. Therefore, it is important that teachers look for ideas and make feedback on content first.
Finally, EFL writing instructors should not forget that learners should be treated with sensitivity and consideration. Thus, criticizing their learners" composition should be avoided while praising it is essential. Such praise will create trust through which we, as EFL writing instructors, will learn from our learners who have a lot to say and write. It is through trust that our learners will write and write and write, and it is writing that makes them feel brave, enhances self-esteem and confidence, increases positive feelings, and makes them think of themselves as writers.