LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:11 November 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2014
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Do Not Just Tell, Paint an Image:
The Art of Descriptive Writing for Beginners

Md. Kawsar Uddin, M.A. in English
Tazin Ahmed, M.A. in English

Abstract

Teaching descriptive writing is a common practice in an ESL writing class. However, there is no general agreement to what kind of strategy is the most helpful and why it is helpful. This paper is a library research which examines the relationship between teachers’ instructions and strategies in relation to writer’s performance. The study explores the setbacks that the ESL writers face in descriptive compositions. The paper also elucidates and illustrates descriptive writing and its components. The study then analyzes a rubric which recounts the pathway to guiding ESL writers’ master descriptive writing. The analysis, finally, suggests that implementation of several instructional strategies help an ESL writer, in particular, a beginner, to improve his or her confidence in writing a descriptive composition.

Key words: Descriptive writing, ESL writer, prewriting, brainstorming, sensory details, first draft, self-editing, peer review, teacher’s evaluation, model composition.

Performance at the End of the Secondary and Higher Secondary Levels

Even after successful completion of secondary and Higher secondary levels, most ESL students lack stock of every day useable words, let alone vocabularies for expressing sensory details or feelings. They usually neither use English for spoken nor for writing until they step into tertiary level. At their university level, they find it difficult to adjust with the new medium of instruction. In terms of writing, they suffer from the blockage of waiting for the words to come. In some cases, even though they have some reasonable ideas about the content, they are unable to successfully produce those thoughts in English. According to Phyllis Crème (2003, p.6), ‘writers traditionally find writing difficult’. Consequently, whenever ESL writers undertake a writing task which requires meticulous use of words, they grow anxious. However, the best piece of composition is produced when the writer is at his/her lowest level of anxiety. Anxiety hampers natural flow of writing and leaves the ESL learners with confusion and emptiness. The ability to describe something convincingly serves a writer well in any kind of composition situation. Since descriptive writing is known to be as showy writing, in which the description is supposed to trigger the reader to visualize, ESL students find it difficult as they suffer from anxiety and lack stock of free flowing vocabularies.

Focus of This Paper

This paper is basically based on library research. The paper examines and investigates equipments and procedures that help ESL writers to arrange and organize their piece of descriptive composition successfully when they are unable to begin. In doing so, the paper primarily focuses on possible class room strategy that reduces ESL writers’ panicky blocking of waiting helplessly for words to come. Then it moves on to examine if and to what extent successful completion of step by step procedure eventually turns ESL writers into sensory composers.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Md. Kawsar Uddin, M.A. in English
Faculty
Department of Languages
International University of Business Agriculture and Technology ( IUBAT).
4 Embankment Drive Road, Sector-10, Uttara, 4 Abdullahpur Hwy, Dhaka 1230
Bangladesh
ukawsar@gmail.com

Tazin Ahmed, M.A. in English
Lecturer
Department of English
Southeast University
House # 64 B, Road # 18, Block #B, Banani Model Town
Dhaka-1213
Bangladesh
tain09 ahmed@yahoo.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.