An Investigation of the Practice of Teaching Writing Skills at Tertiary Level: Debre Berhan University in Focus
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Date
2012-03
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Addis Ababa Universiy
Abstract
The study was conducted to investigate the practice of teaching writing skills at Debre Berhan
University. To this effect, an attempt was made to find out whether or not instructors encourage
students to employ the stages of process writing; to assess when instructors give corrective
feedback to their students ' writing; and to examine how instructors provide corrective f eedback
to their students' writing. To this end, the necessary data for the study were gathered using
observation checklist, questionnaire, sample corrected papers and interview. Three instructors '
writing skill instruction sessions were observed three times. All of the instructors who were six in
number and teaching College Writing Skills and sixty sample students completed the
questionnaire. Fifteen sample corrected papers collected from Accounting, Economics and
Management department students were selected randomly and inspected carefidly by using
written error correction guidelines. The interview was conducted with all the six English
language instructors. In addition, the data collected through the aforementioned instruments
were analyzed quanlilatively and qualitatively. The findings from the study indicate that the
teaching of College Writing Skills at Debre Berhan University was not effective. The result also
revealed that writing instructors at this university hardly ever attempt to treat most elements of
pre-writing, while writing and post-writing in their teaching -of College Writing Skills. The
instructors also never attempt 10 provide their students with corrective feedback in the process of
writing. As is indicated in the finding of the study, the dominantly employed written error
correction strategies used by instructors at Debre Berhan University are circling errors,
substituting errors with corrected versions, writing marginal or end comments in the form of
advice and attempting to correct all written e'rrors committed. Furthermore, based on the
.findings of the study, important conclusions were drawn and some usefitl recommendations wel:e
forwarded to concerned bodies expected to use the findings of the study.
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Debre Berhan University in Focus