Learning to write well now a commercial necessity

Suraya Dewing is the CEO of The Story Mint. I post her latest blog here because what she has to say is important and applies to all of us, whether we are writers or readers. The Style Guide and an explanation of its use can be found at www.thestorymint.com

Submitted by Suraya Dewing on Monday 19 May 2014

I wonder if this is a universal issue.

Recently Auckland University cited a lack of literacy skills as one of the leading causes of failure at University.

As a consequence, they are raising the minimum requirements for entering. In 2009 a survey found that 25% of students lacked ‘the necessary literacy skills to succeed at University.’ That figure led them to make University entry more difficult. However, entry requirements are not as stringent as they soon will be.

There has been an improvement, but the indication is that this is not because the students have become more literate but because Auckland University has tightened its entry criteria. Now it is set to raise the benchmark again. The new rules will be introduced in 2016 which gives students plenty of time to adjust their programmes to include the required English subjects.

As a consequence of the survey findings, the University is doubling the number of English subject passes students have to have before being accepted. In particular, they will have to have some passes in grammar, sentence structure and academic composition skills.

The reasons Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor John Murrow gives for setting these criteria is that students who haven’t got some background in written skills will struggle when they get to University regardless of the area they go into. The basic written skills they are referring to are required for the sciences, engineering and business. In fact, he was saying that to perform well at University students need to be able to construct coherent sentences and paragraphs. They need to be able to present findings, arguments and reports. In short, they need to be able to write.

The Head of Careers for Western Springs College, Kay Wallace was also interviewed. She said the increased requirement would limit student’s choices and cause them great difficulty. ESOL students, in particular would be penalised. It took seven years for a student to ‘acquire full literacy’ she argued.

While she said that learning English was a process that continued throughout a student’s life, she appeared to miss the point Professor John Morrow was making. This was that students were arriving at University with a low level of writing competence which made engagement with all subjects difficult and led to a high failure rate.

The subjects that students took in preference to grammar and English composition covered topics like Health, History, and Social Studies. These gave them the necessary passes in English to get them into University. However, those passes did not prepare them for the rigour of writing essays based on strong argument, compare and contrast, as well as well-structured grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs.

It is very unfair on students to set them up to fail in this way and I am sure that was never the intention of the curriculum designers. It is far better that students are aware of a minimum standard, learn what is needed to meet it and then to enter University feeling confident and able to participate in a way that enhances their learning experience.

Some months ago I talked to my brother-in-law about the experience Chinese students have when they come to Waikato University, as I was beginning to wonder how they coped after having met some students and observed their writing skills. He said they memorised text books and that was how they got through. I found myself glazing over at the thought and a wave of admiration washed over me. My brother-in-law explained that these students didn’t understand enough English to take in what their lecturers said as the lecturers spoke too fast. They would catch a few words and fill in the gaps with what they imagined the lecturer was saying.

This week Ntec started testing the Style Guide™. They are enthusiastic supporters of it and are promoting it to their international student body. If, after hearing all this, there is one thing I want more than anything, it is that the Style Guide™ might help students to understand language structure and then give them confidence. English is the language of business. This is the reality these students face and if they want to participate in commerce then they need to know how to communicate on the same level as native English speakers regardless of whether they go back to home or stay here.

English second language

style guide writing competency