Process Approach in Writing: Issues and Implications for Teaching in Pakistan

The article discusses the problems involved in teaching of writing in Pakistan and offers suggestions for improving writing instruction. Trend of writing in Pakistan is based on product-oriented approach to writing. Lack of research in this area has pushed it at the secondary place. Teaching to reading is a much focused area not only in schools but also in teacher training workshops. There is no any systematic program of evaluating the written product .Rather non standardized scoring guides are used to evaluate the written pieces of the students. That is why error is considered a mistake inspite of a way to learning. The article also discusses different types of writing evaluation that are also mal practised. Even in 21 st Century, no serious attention has yet been paid to the research in writing processes. since, 1947, none of the governments has paid heed to include teaching of writing among those generously funded areas whose eligibility is like those orthodoxies never questioned. Although the Higher Education commission has been funding various research projects but the research in the areas of writing processes is treated like step child. Almost all of the universities in Pakistan, lack mature decision regarding research in the area of writing process. In foreign universities sessions on writing processes during educational conferences is not unusual now. But unfortunately in Pakistan research in writing process is hostile by inequitable academic structure which is hostile to new ideas. The present government has launched many programs for the professional development of the teachers. But not even a single project is launched to promote the culture of writing. Consequently a lot of experienced teachers feel uncomfortable while talking about writing and process of writing. Condition is also not different in the other areas but when we discuss the level of expertise in the other basic skills for example, reading, listening and speaking, during the teacher training the area of reading is focused too much. But a little stress is put on the teaching of writing during teacher training programs. The worst of all is that all of our examination boards have not yet produced a unanimous scoring guide lines for a writing sample. This unanimous writing sample helps solving the existing issues of contradictory and scattered results in the evaluation of writing. In most of our schools reading skills are focused and taught throughout the year. Schools are full of experts who can help the students in the areas of reading difficulties but experts in the area of teaching to writing are very few. If a few are present they know little about writing difficulties faced by the students. In the area of academic writing there is deficiency of consensus about standardized instructional methodology that might help how to teach writing. At first glance, the discussion that directly focuses on teaching attracts the reader and seems practical and helpful. The early studies focused unnecessarily on product and form. The inconclusive response and views about writing made it confused and complex. The confusions which lie in out society regarding teaching of writing pertain, topic sentences, outlines, and word choices, syntactic or grammatical accuracy. These confusions further give birth to some more assumptions which are basically the part of these above mentioned confusions for example: the basic purpose of teaching to writing has become that we need only discover what is missing from students writing. Unluckily, we compare the writing product of students with those of either good writers’ product or the pre-conceived aspirations of the teachers themselves. And engage in building such plans and projects that might be helpful in filling the gap of those missing units. This so called attention to teaching of writing is called improvement in writing instruction. Whereas, it is mere a new notion that stresses on form and error free written product. We can discover the proponents of this view from the text books and reference books of composition for the teaching practices which are commonly used by the teachers. Today when there is a powerful shift away from a focus on the end product to a concern with the writing process, some of the text books and reference books for composition teaching practice are providing such typical guide lives for example: Begin your paragraphs with a topic sentence.”