My students have their writing final exam tomorrow so I thought we’d do a practice run. The idea is that they can try and then we’d look at the mistakes that were made. In theory, that will prevent them from making the same mistakes tomorrow. I told them to write a 6 sentence paragraph, two sentences had to be in the present continuous tense, and they had to use one adverb of frequency (usually, occasionally, etc.). I told them that the topic was “school.” They could write anything they wanted about school.
Bilquis, a rather chatty student of mine said, “But teacher, what should we write about?”
“Anything about school Bilquis.”
“But what?”
“Anything. You can write about any school you’ve been to.”
“But what do I write?”
“You don’t have any opinions about any of the schools you’ve been to?”
“Ummm?”
“Just write something, whatever comes into your head.”
“No, tell me teacher, what do I write about?”
“Anything!”
“No, let me write about something else.”
“No, just write!”
“But what…?”
“THINK FOR YOURSELF!”
Honestly, it was only 6 sentences, and she did eventually have six sentences of opinions to turn in, but she didn’t think she could do it. She was paralyzed when I didn’t give her something definite to do. It’s common enough here, they are petrified about the thought of coming up with their own material. The students have been pestering me for a week, “Please teacher, tell us what the topic is!” Of course that would negate the whole test aspect of it. If they can prepare and memorize something with the help of dictionaries and textbooks, it wouldn’t tell me how well they know the material. I always assign something general and easy like, “Why are you studying English?” but they are worried that it will be “hard.” I have told several of them that I will expect a history of the formation of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka the PDRY aka south Yemen. North and South Yemen were reunified back in 1990.), but only 6 sentences worth… That made them freeze with fear, but I made it clear that it was a joke.
And it’s not as though we’re doing high power writing right now. I would be ecstatic if a student turned in the following:
I am studying English because I want to get a good job. I go to the school every day. English is hard but I study a lot. My brother takes classes too. I am writing this paragraph so I can get a good grade. I love English!
A lot of the things I get have the same, basic sentiment, but with a lot more grammatical errors… Anyway, not all of my students have a problem, but some of them have zero imagination. I’m hoping that with a little pushing I can make them do more than they think they can.