Teaching the Writing of English as Foreign Language: An Indonesian Context

This research, conducted from August to November 2014, aimed at describing how English as a foreign language (EFL) writing is taught and learned in an Indonesian context, that is, three junior schools in the City of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The study used instruments such as interviews, observations, and students’ English writings.  The data were analyzed descriptively using theories of Bogdan and Biklen (2007), Odell (1977), and Ivanic (1995).  The results showed that the teachers have traditionally done the teaching of EFL writing in the schools, that is, the teaching of writing aims at improving students’ speaking, reading, listening, vocabulary and grammar, but not writing itself.  Teachers’ treatments of both good and poor student writers were, in general, the same. The students’ writings were generally poor although there were some who could write well. The teachers, however, determined to improve their EFL teaching practices, namely, moving from traditional ways to contemporary practices of EFL writing teaching and learning whose aim is to improve students’ writing itself and along their processes of writing, their teachers act as learning facilitators right from topic choice to writing to rewriting to publishing.

 

Keywords: Teaching, learning, writing, and EFL writing