The Improvement of my Writing Competencies

Writing is an important subject in learning English. To be a person who learns second language, we have to learn not only how to speak the language but also how to write a good text using that language. In English Education Department, there are some subjects that used to learn writing such as Writing I, Writing II, Writing III, and Writing IV. In those subjects, we can learn how to make a good writing with paying attention to all of the rules in it.  I had learned Writing I in semester I and Writing II in semester II. There are so many things that I have learned in those subjects. In Writing I, students are introduced to writing itself. The lecturer taught about how to make a good writing. First, students had learned to make a good sentence such as how to make a proper question, a topic sentence, a conclusion sentence and so on. Then, students had to make some paragraphs about descriptive, narrative and recount. Students also had to make some simple writing about a paragraph every week as an assignment.  In Writing II, there are some improvements in learning writing. The levels of the materials are higher than Writing I. Students had to learn a step ahead about descriptive, narrative and recount paragraphs. Besides, students also had learned about procedure and process analysis. Both Writing I and Writing II give some improvements in my writing skill.

In semester three, I have to learn Writing III. I learn a lot of things dealing with making a good proper writing. There are some aspects I get that I did not have in Writing I and Writing II. The materials are not about simple paragraphs anymore. Students have to learn about formal writing to prepare writing a thesis. After nine meetings there are some improvements in my writing skill. The improvements can be categorized in three aspects. They are cognitive aspect, affective aspect and psychomotor aspect.

1.      Cognitive

Cognitive is defined as something which is of or something which relates to being in a state of conscious intellectual activity. Such activities as thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining or learning words are collectively referred to as to cognitive activities or conscious intellectual activities. In Writing III, there are some improvements in my writing skill dealing with cognitive aspect. From the first meeting, my lecturer wanted the students to write about the profile of Writing I and Writing II. I wrote all that I remembered about them and I learned how to analyze them. In this activity, I could know how much improvement that I get from Writing I and Writing II so I can learn more things in Writing III. In the next meeting, I wrote about my weaknesses in writing. This assignment made me explored about my own ability in writing. It made me aware about my weaknesses and things that I still do not understand. From this assignment, I started to think about improvement to be better. There are some aspects that I have to learn to cover my weaknesses.

The other improvement that I get from Writing III is that about using thesaurus and dictionary. Previously, I really did not know anything about thesaurus. From this meeting, I know about the function and the benefits of using thesaurus and also how to use it. I can get so many synonyms of one word from thesaurus. I also found a lot of new words from that so it can increase my vocabularies. Now, I realize that there are so many benefits to use thesaurus and dictionary. The next improvement is about making some ideas. Making an idea is one of students’ weaknesses included me. From this issue, my lecturer gave us tips to dig some ideas. The one that I have learned to solve this weakness is primary association. I have to write 50 words that related to one word and I have to make sentences from the words. I can get some ideas easily from this way. Besides, I also have learned about correcting others’ writing. The assignment to analysis others’ writing also gives me some improvements in my writing ability. From this activity, I can learn so many things from others’ weaknesses so I can improve more about my skill. My other weakness in writing is about grammar. In Writing III I get some improvements dealing with this weakness. My lecturer taught about the “Rumus 33” and I have to remember all of the formulas. This way is really helping because it answers my weakness about grammar. The next thing is about writing a formal paper. I had to explore a website about academic integrity and wrote my comment about it. This assignment taught me all about academic integrity and plagiarism. From this activity I started to avoid plagiarism.

2.      Affective

Affective is value based. It is concerned with the beliefs, feelings and attitudes of students. In this Writing III, there are some improvements dealing with affective aspect. From nine meetings that I have been learning, I find out that I have a lot of weaknesses in learning English especially in writing. I started to force myself to learn and study more hardly to improve my academic ability. The most affective improvement since I have Writing III is that I started to love writing. Previously, writing is a subject which frightened me because I did not have much ability in writing. In this Writing III, my lecturer tried to help me to solve my weaknesses. He also made me aware that writing is an important thing in learning English. It is a must to make writing a habit in our daily life. The last activity in Writing III there are also some affective improvements I got. It is about academic integrity and plagiarism. Since I have learned it, I started to avoid plagiarism and started to make a proper writing with my original work.

3.      Psychomotor

The psychomotor aspect includes physical and motor (or muscular) skills. This means much more than the gaining of skills in games and physical education. Every act has a psychomotor component. Writing is also psychomotor skill. The psychomotor improvement I get from Writing III is that I can write faster than before since I had an assignment to write all words related to one word in limited time.

From all contents that I wrote above, it can conclude that after I attended the nine meetings in Writing III this semester, I got so many improvements in writing. The improvements can be categorized in three aspects. They are cognitive aspect, affective aspect and psychomotor aspect. The cognitive aspect is defined as something which is of or something which relates to being in a state of conscious intellectual activity while the affective is value based which is concerned with the beliefs, feelings and attitudes of students and The psychomotor aspect includes physical and motor (or muscular) skills. All of the improvements in Writing III that I get make me want to learn more about English and to improve more about my ability.