Improving the writing skills of 1st year IT students

Abstract

Listening, reading, writing, and speaking are the four main language skills. These abilities are classified as either receptive (or passive) or productive (or active). Listening and reading are considered receptive skills because they require students to receive and comprehend language. On the other hand, speaking and writing are productive skills that require students to generate their own language.
The students of International Information Technology University (IITU) undergo to different English courses to enhance their skills and be ready for their future profession. Most of the courses offered by the Department of languages are connected to improving their writing abilities, with this, it is really a great challenge to teachers to devise different teaching strategies and methodologies to extract the writing skills of the learners and develop them to the fullest.
The article deals with the English language essay writing techniques which are used in teaching English language to IT students in their first year of study at university as the initial step to their profession oriented English language course program. The essay writing course program is taught at International Information Technology University (IITU) in Almaty to the 1st year Bachelor degree Intermediate level students. Writing has always been seen as an important skill in teaching and learning English language. This importance is due to the fact that it reinforces grammatical structures and vocabulary that educators strive to teach their students.
In order to improve writing skills of English language learners, educators must consider new and innovative methods for their instructions. Using the controlled approach, this study analyzed the validity of different teaching strategies and methodologies to see the progress of students during the Teacher Supervised Independent Study (TSIS) 1st and 2nd attestations guided essay writing and independent essay writing during Mid-term and Final examinations for the Academic Year, 2021-2022. The goal of this paper is to provide successful teaching approaches for improving the English language writing skills of 1st year Intermediate level students. The findings suggest that through the use of different approaches such as brainstorming, hamburger method, modeled writing, interactive writing, guided writing, this goal can be attained.
Key words: essay writing, skills, approaches, English language, teaching, learning, course, program.