LOW STANDARD OF WRITING SKILLS

I am saddened by the low standard of writing skills in Papua New Guinea schools at all levels. 

The problem is that teachers have been poorly trained as students and have learned English as a second language.

They think that all they have to do is teach sentences, parts of speech, tenses, active/passive voice and it all falls into place. 

But the students are often left to write baby sentences often all the way up to grade 12. 

They have no idea of the beauty, rhythm and smooth delivery of complex sentences written in English as a first language.

I have been a leading teacher of writing skills for as long as I have worked in PNG schools. 

The standard rises quickly as I teach students to write in simple and elegant sentences. They sound out the smoothness of sentences in their souls.

Some time ago, I helped the Department of Education in Morobe Province to run workshops for 800 elementary and primary school teachers on Rhythm Phonics.

I was escorted to schools by the senior inspector Mr Tangui. He introduced me by telling the teachers at the workshops that I was the top Writing Skills teacher in PNG.

FODE English courses teach students all the skills to be second language speakers and writers. 

The FODE courses in English have been written by PNG teachers with poor understanding of elegant English. The phonics teaching across the nation is even worse.