LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Errors in the Writing of English at the Degree Level:
Pakistani Teachers’ Perspective

Muhammad Iqbal Butt, Ph.D.
Sarwet Rasul, Ph.D.

Abstract

Teaching of English has always occupied a special place in the education system of Pakistan. English language is taught in Pakistan as a compulsory subject from grade six (and in some cases from grade one onwards) to degree level. However, students fail to acquire the required competence in the area of writing skills due to the absence of any systematic process and lack of implementation of error analysis system. Students blamed the education system and the teachers for their inability to write grammatically correct English even at degree level. However, the teachers have their own part of the story. In this backdrop the current paper examines the perspective of teachers on the existing situation of writing skills of degree level students of the University of Punjab (Pakistan) in four selected districts of the province of Punjab. For this purpose semi-structured interviews are used as tool and ten teachers (five male and five female) teaching English at degree level in different Government Degree Colleges are interviewed. The interviews are divided into two parts: part 1 provides demographic details of interviewees whereas part 2 provides insights into the problem under four sub-themes related to current practices, problems of the teacher, teachers’ viewpoint, and overall suggestions. The research is mainly qualitative in nature though some quantitative dimensions are also explored that support the qualitative claims. It is expected that the research will explore the teachers’ voices and experiences; and will provide insight into the issues of errors committed by the students and need for error analysis at degree level in Pakistan.

1. Introduction

Errors are natural and basic ingredient of human beings as Richards (1974:100) claims, “it is matter of common observation that even the most intelligent, motivated learners do make errors even when learning under the best possible conditions.” Language learning is a complicated process whether a child is acquiring his first language or an adult is learning a second or third language, both go through the same hit and trail process. In Pakistan, students barely get acquainted with the nature of writing process and teachers also hardly make any conscious effort in this regard. Consequently, students start committing errors and mistakes in writing and these errors/mistakes are not rectified by the teachers using proper EAS. Finally, these errors and mistakes become permanent feature of their writing. The writing of essays, précis, letters and dialogues is also generally not taught as such. The students are usually given a short list of essays and letters and they further make a selection of these essays and letters and cram a few of them hoping to find one of those in their examinations. The factual position in our institutions is that the students find précis writing very difficult and as a result this writing skill area remains very poor. As for as essay is concerned, the students show a very poor performance in essay writing even after having a list of important essays for the examination. If a student is asked to write an essay on his own, he finds it almost impossible to write even a few sentences which are relevant to the topic or grammatically correct. In our institutions, the success of the teachers is measured in terms of the number of students which the teachers can help to pass. As a result they also work under instrumental motivation and encourage rote learning among their students. The students, ultimately, resort to cramming because the teachers do not properly help them in developing different writing skills.

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Muhammad Iqbal Butt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Govt. Zamindar Postgraduate College
Gujrat
Pakistan
profib@hotmail.com

Sarwet Rasul, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English, Fatima Jinnah Women University
The Mall
Rawalpindi
Pakistan
sarwet2004@hotmail.com

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