Language Competence of HSSC Level Students in Pakistan: Developing Writing Proficiency through Literature

Abstract

Writing is a means of communication and part of everybody's education. Writing as a medium of language has its special features. This study brings to light the fact that teaching English through literature does not render any substantive and positive pay off in developing and honing the ESL/EFL learners' writing skill. In the Pakistani context, literature seems to be inadequate and improper language teaching tool at HSSC level. To achieve the set objectives of this study, the researcher went for the quantitative research methodology. So, a questionnaire comprising of four categories i.e., grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure and creative writing was designed to collect data from 600 subjects (male/female) of intermediate level. The researcher also conducted an achievement test so that a correlation might be drawn between their attitude towards "developing writing skill through literature" and the score of their achievement test. This study has also strived to categorize the subjects in accordance with their proficiency level and computed a pie chart to illustrate their proficiency level. The collected data were analyzed through software package (SPSS XX). The findings of this study explicitly reveal that the EFL learners remain unable to develop both the language skills (particularly writing skill) and language areas when they are taught English through literature. This study recommends that the teaching of English should be application oriented and task-based strategies and activities should be resorted to by the EL educators.

Text Production for Novice Translators

“…Moreover, writing as a medium of language has its special features. Vocabulary, grammar, semantics, signs and symbols are those fundamental features on which this tool of communication relies (Din, 2018). Translation is a juggling work.…”