Abstract
The principal purpose of this paper is to critically examine and evaluate the efficacy of the principled eclectic approach to teaching English as second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) writing to undergraduate students. The paper illustrates that this new method adapts mainstream writing pedagogies to individual needs of learners of ESL/EFL in order to address students’ difficulties arising from their contact with an unfamiliar language. Such a claim is based on the researcher’s review of relevant research, the analysis and evaluation of scholarly studies on the subject by leading academics and authorities in the area, and the researcher’s practical experiences as a writing teacher in the Department of English Language and Translation (DELT), College of Languages and Translation (COLT), King Saud University (KSU). It has been generally observed that the common, time-honored, language-based, process-based, and genre-based approaches to teaching writing tend to troubleshoot only certain specific problems related to the teaching of ESL/EFL writing. This paper highlights the importance of student-centered approaches to teaching in order to achieve the goal of coherent, pluralistic language teaching. To achieve this, the discussion recommends classifying, selecting, and sequencing the activities related to teaching writing. Indeed, this is what eclecticism means. The term principled signifies coherence that consistently focuses upon the same formal or functional units and sequencing them at the end to help learners interact and participate in writing activities that need contextualized attention. The paper concludes that the gap between eclecticism and principled eclecticism in teaching English writing must be bridged to improve ESL/EFL learners’ writing skills.
Highlights
The acquisition of English writing skills has gained tremendous importance as an academic skill, but with the expansion of businesses worldwide and the economic and cultural globalization, it has become an important skill that translates into any career field
The principal purpose of this paper is to critically examine and evaluate the efficacy of the principled eclectic approach to teaching English as second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) writing to undergraduate students
The paper concludes that the gap between eclecticism and principled eclecticism in teaching English writing must be bridged to improve ESL/EFL learners’ writing skills
Summary
The acquisition of English writing skills has gained tremendous importance as an academic skill, but with the expansion of businesses worldwide and the economic and cultural globalization, it has become an important skill that translates into any career field. By virtue of being the most important language link, most professions require some form of writing on the job Whether it is writing medical reports, financial reports, instructional sheets, and user manuals written by software engineers or emails and other forms of written communication in all kinds of businesses, the role of writing as a multi-target English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) tool is significant and expanding. Teaching writing skills to ESL/EFL learners has its own intrinsic problems, and various teaching methodologies and different approaches have been introduced in language classrooms to teach writing to ESL/EFL learners All these approaches have doubtlessly helped ESL/EFL acquire the requisite writing skills in English and display a certain command of English language, but the teaching of writing and its acquisition are not linear processes; they require a multi-layered, recursive procedure. It is imperative that writing instructors draw on learners’ cultural, social, and geographical backgrounds and keep them in proper perspective while teaching writing skills in language classrooms
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