COMMUNICATIVE WRITING EXPLORING THE CONCEPT

COMMUNICATIVE WRITING EXPLORING THE CONCEPT
Two years ago I circulated a piece of paper to my student’s titled. “Writing Examination: A communicative Approach”. In that paper I spelt out how students are to structure and present answers of examination questions o give meaning, focus and make personal contribution in responding to the question.

The essence is that writing whether of academic paper or of examination or presentation of any scientific research is a communication between the writer and the reader. It appears that many students in my class of POL4301 of 2005/2006 sessions have adopted the communicative approach to writing both in the seminar project and the end of the semester examination.

Indeed, there is an extensive development of literature and debate on a communicative approach in writing. One aspect, which is dealt with in the literature, is that in order to produce communicative competence in student, teachers must recognize teaching environment i.e. the size of class, in order to monitor the style of writing by students. Secondly, in large classes, in order to develop individual student’s skills in writing it is important to promote interactive and team works.

Thus, Akudolu Lilian-Rita rightly observed that in view of large class size in our tertiary institutions there is a major problem of how students can be helped to develop the ability to write communicatively in English language. Rather than be deeply involved with the issues and the debate, on the subject I will clarify briefly the concept of communicative writing.

Communicative writing is the ability to express ideas correctly to convey meaning through the use of written symbols. Such that the reader will decipher the proposed information from the context of the text.

Written mode of communication is more difficult than oral. In the latter the interlocutors face each other and depending on their experience and socialization can manoeuvre to use extra linguistic clues to negotiate meaning. The written on the other hand does not have this advantage. Therefore, in writing one has to do everything possible to convey meaning. This may include style, structure, syntax, grammatical, etc. For example, grammatical mistakes in a written text may make it difficult for somebody to understand the information being conveyed. Also in examination, producing lecture notes or what is read in other texts put students off such that one can hardly respond to the question asked.

Apparently as could be discern, communicative writing requires a “rigidly idealized linguistic patterning”. There are two distinct principles or methods of patterning in communicative writing. These are:
1. Fluency in language writing
2. Accuracy in language writing

Fluency in writing refers to the ability of student to write the English language smoothly, readily and with unrestricted flow of words as writing in the mother tongue. By this the writer is just to convey meaning in disregard of language forms. While accuracy in language writing refers to any ability of student to write, mindful of language forms and other linguistic guidelines.

Fluency in communicative writing resulted in voluminous presentation. Accuracy on the other hand appears short and brief. In fluency style it is possible to find many grammatical and structural mistakes. But it has the advantage of conveying the message and feelings of the writer. On the other hand accuracy form may look cleaner, with less grammatical mistakes but will not be able to bring out adequate knowledge on the subject matter. Certainly, a common opinion among communication skills theorists is that accuracy work is indeed important for communicative writing because of the skills one could acquire, but in communicative writing emphasis is on fluency not accuracy. As Akudolu notes, “the ability of learners to understand and convey meaning in writing becomes more important than their ability to use grammatical forms”. In support of this view Iitlewood argues that “with less emphasis placed on grammatical forms it is likely that both teachers and students will pay adequate attention to the communicative aspects of the language. That will give students better opportunity of learning how to write coherently”.

Unfortunately, because of poor background of teaching basic skills in communicative writing, many students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria are deficient of linguistic forms in writing in English. Therefore, students are to combine both accuracy and fluency in writing in English language. This will avail them with double advantage of fluency and respect of rules of writing fine English language. I am proud to say that I have some such students in my class of POL4301 2005/2006 session.

This is a preliminary report. To be used only my students

M.M. Yusif
May 2006