Students’ Writing Project in Vocational Schools in North Sulawesi: Design and Challenges

Abstract

Writing skill in English can bridge the making of professionalism required in work fields. This study deals with the attempts to figure out the existence condition of the development of writing skill in vocational schools particularly tourism and hotel class. It is intended to reveal the design of students’ writing project both the form(s) and challenge(s). To gain these objectives, this study qualitatively obtains its data upon the interview with teachers from tourism class of three main vocational schools in North Sulawesi. These schools are selected based on the assumption that they allow more English-related subjects in the curriculum and prepare professionals who writing skill in English is recommended. The data are coded in the way of the grounded theory as it undergoes open, axial and selective coding. The findings indicate that writing project in the vocational schools are attached to the activity of tourism object presentation, destination web-design, and tour promotion. However, the practice of the writing projects is challenged by several factors such as teachers’ competence, students’ motivation, local government support, and limited collaboration and partnership. These findings are of importance to formulate breakthroughs to establish professionalism and to develop learning model for vocational schools.