Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on New Trends in Teaching and Education
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Enhancing Writing Skill in English via Newspaper Articles: An Evaluative Study on Engineering Students
Dr. Soumya Jose
ABSTRACT:
Writing is one of the most desirable employability skills. Though writing skills play a significant role in getting good scores in written tests throughout one’s period of study, the importance of these skills is realized only when one takes up a position in a professional environment. It has been observed that most of the students from regional-medium backgrounds who get admission at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Andhra Pradesh, resorted to rote learning to score good marks in English. Such students who manage to score good marks in their A-level exams do not exhibit good writing skills and consequently fail miserably in “English for Technical Communication,” a course offered in the first year of the B.Tech Degree programme. In this context, the instructor found it significant to hone the writing skills of B.Tech. students, especially to make them job-ready. This study was conducted with the objective of honing the writing skills of B.Tech students at NITAndhra Pradesh. The study has not relied on any expensive learning material; instead, it has made use of English newspapers, an affordable and authentic material to learn English. The duration of the study was eight months, and the improvement in writing skills of the sample was assessed in line with the standardized tests in English.
keywords: confidence level, corrective feedback, pleasure reading, point of view, task-based approach