THE REPORT OF TEFL OBSERVATION

TEACHING WRITING FOR FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS

ON DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

Febriana Dian Yusniati

A320120178

PROGRAM STUDI BAHASA INGGRIS

FAKULTAS KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH SURAKARTA
2014

TEACHING WRITING FOR FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS

ON DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

1. Observation
a. Observation 1
First observation in writing class of first semester lectured by Mr.
Muslimin on Friday 21st November 2014.
In this class, teaching learning process starting with greeting, reviewing
the last materials, and then some students submitting the assignment that give in
the last meeting. The students submitting paper about the writing assignment, on
the paper student write about procedure and explanation text. After submitting
assignment to lecturer, the students giving out the copied paper assignment to
other students in the class. So, all students have the text that written by their
friend. After that, the lecturer asking the students to read the text and then give
comments about text. In 10-15 minutes the lecturer asks the students about the
mistakes that found in the text, the mistakes maybe about the grammar, spelling,
and punctuation error. Then the lecturer and students discuss about the text, and
then revising the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. For instance:
delicious food (in students text) it is wrong and at that time the lecturer revising
and the correct is a delicious food it must give article a before the phrase, etc.
During the discussion between lecturer and students is interactive, the lecturer ask
to mention the mistake of the text, then the student mention what the mistakes
found in the text, or the students ask about the grammar rules and the lecturer tell
about the rules. And after finishing discuss about the text, the lecturer check the
attendance and then giving assignment recount text for next week.
During teaching-learning process, the lecturer good enough in manage
the class, although the lecturers voice not loud enough, and only some students
that doing other activities like talking with the friends, or busy with their cell
phone.
b. Observation 2

The second observation in writing class of first semester lectured by Mr.

Muslimin on Friday 5th December 2014.
Similar to the first observation, the teaching learning process starting
with greeting, reviewing the last materials, and then some students submitting the
assignment that give in the last meeting. The students submitting paper about the
writing assignment, on the paper student write about recount text. After
submitting assignment to lecturer, the students giving out the copied paper
assignment to other students in the class. So, all students have the text that written
by their friend. After that, the lecturer asking the students to read the text and then
give comments about text. In 10-15 minutes the lecturer asks the students about
the mistakes that found in the text, the mistakes maybe about the grammar,
spelling, and punctuation error. Then the lecturer and students discuss about the
text, and then revising the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. For the first,
the lecture give the generic structure of recount text, the orientation, events, and
reorientation, and then the lecturer ask the students to analyze the text based on
the generic structure, then the students give comments about the text. The students
not only analyze about the generic structure, but also the content of the recount
text. From analyzing the content, the lecturer and students find many mistakes
about the grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Then the lecturer revises the
mistakes. During the discussion between lecturer and students more interactive
than last week, the lecturer ask to mention the mistake of the text, then the student
mention what the mistakes found in the text, or the students ask about the
grammar and the lecturer tell about the rules and the students give feedback. And
after finishing discuss about the text, the lecturer check the attendance and then
giving assignment text for next week.
In second observation, the lecturer can manage class, all the students
seriously focus on teaching learning process, not doing the other activity.

2. Analysis
The result of my observation is related with the one of three paradigms of
teaching writing, the product approach.

The Product Approach

The writing class that was observed used the product approach paradigm
of teaching writing. The product approach is a traditional approach of teaching
writing in which students typically are provided with a model and encouraged to
imitate it in order to produce similar product. The main procedure of the product
approach involve imitating, copying, and transforming models provided by the
teacher and emphasizing the error free final product (Nunan, 1999). The main
purpose of the learners writing activity is to catch grammar, spelling, and
punctuation error (Leki, 1996:173). In elementary or intermediate level,
following this theory, students activity is to write out grammar exercise. These
activities are disguised as composition writing; those are called guided writing.
here the students are given a short text and instructed to change all singular nouns
to plural nouns or to form present tense to past tense etc. the students are assumed
to be not ready yet to create the text themselves; they are only ready to manipulate
forms. In other more advanced classes students are assigned composition or other
kinds of text to write based on certain topics. The poor teacher, then, takes home
the piled students paper to grade or give marks especially based on the
grammatical errors. The students works are finally returned to the students with
some comments and corrections.
The focus of these types of writing exercise is primarily on grammar,
students will get good marks if the texts are free from errors or have only just very
few errors. Consequently, then, students write very cautiously in their second
language. Therefore, they often avoid writing what they cannot control.

Classroom Activities
Typical examples of writing exercise based on the product approach are
exemplified in Long and Richards (1990: 262-263) as follows:
a. Students use notes to write complete sentences, following a given model:
Model : the gun he carries is never loaded.
lorry/ drive/ usually/ overload
piano/ play/ often/ hire

b. Read this description of the port of Calcutta, and then write similar
descriptions of the ports of Southampton, Marseilles, and New York. The
necessary information is given below:
Calcutta is a port in India. It is situated ion the northeast coast, on the
estuary of the River Hoogly, which flows into the Bay of Bengal. The
population of the city is six million. The distance from New Delhi, the
capital of the country is about one thousand miles.
(a) Southampton- Britain- south coast- River Itchen- English Channelthree hundred thousand- London- eighty miles.
(b) Marseilles- France- South coast- River Rhone- Mediterranean Seaseven hundred thousand- Paris- four hundred miles.
(c) New York- the USA- East Coast - River Hudson- Atlantic Oceaneight million- Washington- two hundred and fifty miles.
Seen from the examples above, the traditional way of teaching writing
mostly concerns with the final product of writing and what the product should
look like. Brown (2000:35) has mentioned some traditional criteria of good
writing. Compositions, he states, are supposed to (1) meet certain standards of
prescribed English rhetorical style, (2) reflect accurate grammar, and (3) be
organized in conformity with what the audience would consider to be
conventional. A great deal of attention, then, is placed on model composition,
that students would imitate and how well a students final product measured
against a list of criteria which include content, organization, vocabulary use, and
mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with the attention to any of above
mentioned criteria. They are still really the concerns of writing teachers. However,
there are more advantages for learners when they are seen as creators of language
and are allowed to focus on content and message.

3. Conclusion
From the result and theory that related, the writer can conclude that the
teaching writing for first semester is suitable with the theory of product approach.
As written in the academic book, the Writing I is guided writing. The teachinglearning process is suitable with this theory because the teaching writing focuses

on grammar, students will get good marks if the texts are free from errors or have
only just very few errors.

Reference:
Fauziati, Endang. 2010. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Surakarta: Era
Pustaka Utama