Abstract
This paper is evolved from the concern that it is not uncommon that students write their assignments, and essays perfunctorily. In most cases, this kind of essay is unsatisfactory and is given remedial treatment. However the perfunctory products may have a psychological rather than a linguistic origin, i.e. caused by students, "not putting their hearts to writing" rather than "not having the linguistic competence". Language teachers must therefore have an understanding of what the student's real problem is in writing before any pedagogic improvements can be devised. We need some kind of device to guard against any false interpretation of students' performance caused by those products.This paper reports on a diagnostic process to separate the flawed essays which are written with involvement from those written perfunctorily by students in their writing assignments. The process consists of three steps of observation: (1) the overall quality of the essays, (2) the discourse types of the essays, and (3) the disbursal structure of the compositions in relation to maturity of written communication. The process has been put to test in a pilot study. It was found that by going through the steps of the process, students' essays can be classified along a gradient of degree of involvement in writing. It is argued that using such a diagnostic device one can attain a better understanding of the students' linguistic and non-linguistic problems in writing and plan pedagogic improvements accordingly.
| Keywords: | Chinese composition; students attitudes; Chinese Instruction |
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