Exploring Some Reasons for the Dearth in Writing Skills in English by English Major Students in the University of Yaounde 1

Abstract

This article reports on a study that sought to highlight a link between writing skills dearth to the teaching approach, as well as ignorance and neglect by the students. The study’s focus is on university students in a Department of English. The study is contextualized within the larger framework of course evaluation, teaching approaches and student involvement and is placed within the realm of the new literacy framework. Data was generated from document reviews and observation. The study is qualitative and used 650 written documents from the Department of English of Yaounde 1 University to assess writing skills proficiency through an error analysis approach for grammatical errors, organizational errors (such as in paragraph organization and formal letter structuring), and strategic communication errors. 325 of these scripts were obtained from final-year students in an undergraduate class from a continuous assessment test. The test was a standard requirement, lasting for one hour and was invigilated. 25 were complaint letters obtained randomly from complaints submitted at the Chair’s secretariat and 300 were past examination papers also randomly selected. Numerous errors were identified at the levels of the written exercises that related to grammatical infelicities, spelling errors, paragraph structure and organization as well as writing in conformity with expected norms and registers. All the findings pointed to poor teaching approaches vis-à-vis the attainment of proficiency in writing skills, as well as gross neglect by the students’ application of rules, and lack of practice. The study has significance to both the teachers and students as the key stakeholders as it calls for practical approaches to align courses offered towards writing skills proficiency, as well as a student consciousness in developing writing skills.