Functional Writing Skills for Effective Communication: The English Language Classroom in Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to investigate to what depth learners are exposed to appropriate functional text varieties, Identify the kind of support teachers give learners in their functional writing tasks and establish how this exposure influences the teacher in teaching functional writing for effective communication. This study was based on Hylands’ theory of teaching writing, Hymes concept of communicative competence and Widowson’s concept of communicative language teaching. This was a descriptive research and data was collected using observation, a student’s self evaluation schedule and interview schedule to capture the actual teaching and learning of writing in the classrooms. A total of 6 secondary schools in Nyanza Province were selected randomly to make the study population. During the entire study 720 students and 18 teachers of English language participated. From the research, it was found that teachers have different understanding about the teaching of functional writing skills. The differences in the beliefs that teachers held about the issues in teaching functional writing, did reflect differences in their practices , approaches and the depth to which learners are exposed to appropriate functional writing text varieties, that students are not fully exposed to varieties of functional writing texts, that teachers give minimal support to learners. Lastly, minimum effort is employed by the teachers in trying to show the learners how functional writing should be seen as a means of effective communication.