Thank you for the kind words! Good luck and happy studying. 🙂

Sincerely,
Joyce

If I misunderstood your comment, it’s I who should aplogise, not you! Perhaps you could explain what you meant? I might have over-reacted a bit, but I read three comments in a row that seem to reflect the same line of thought that I just don’t subscribe to. Sorry if I misunderstood your comment!

My apology, you misunderstood my comments and they are certainly not a reflection on the dedication I have towards my job. I will withdraw my comments.

Good idea! Not only does it make it easier for the teacher, it also makes it easier for the student. In fact, we could even try doing something like this:

1) Outline in English (only keywords)
2) Draft in Chinese (computer)
3) Final version in Chinese (handwritten)

You could make the same argument for listening, speaking and reading as well. Even though I think it’s true that whether or not a student succeeds in learning to write (or, in fact, if anyone becomes good at anything at all) is mostly dependent on him/her, I don’t like your conclusion. You seem to be saying “since this is dependent on other things (how much time they spend on their own and their writing ability in their first language) there’s not much we can do”, but perhaps I’m misunderstanding your post. Also, I think you’re misunderstanding the goal here. Very few second language learners, especially in Chinese, have the goal of becoming good authors in Chinese. Writing practise in the classroom is much more about forming decent sentences that together deliver a message at roughly the same level of complexity as everyday speech. Most normal native speakers can do that in their own language.

You could have fewer writing assignments and do more with them. Quantity isn’t what counts. And I don’t think that “the students just want a grade” and “in an ideas world it should be all about what they have learnt” are good excuses at all. You could use those arguments and just skip all teaching. Don’t you care if they learn anything from when you teach them pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar either? I’m sorry, but that the students don’t want it is a very poor excuse to not do something as a teacher. Of course, I know fully well that correcting and giving feedback are time-consuming tasks, but you can keep the time factor constant simply by writing fewer and/or shorter texts. Using a computer for part of the process is also fine. If teaching isn’t about what the students learn, why bother? The only valid excuse I can think of is if the institution requires you to work in a certain way that doesn’t allow you to accomplish that, which is, sadly, often the case.