The Teachers’ Roles of Teaching Writing
Further, the important thing of this is students understand the meaning of teacher’s comments.
The last is the teacher should clarify for herhimself, and for the students, how their writing will be evaluated. The teacher and students should have an
agreement how the writing will be evaluated. On the other hand, Harmer 2001: 261 proposes some roles for teacher in
teaching writing that are motivator, resource and feedback provider. a.
Motivator Motivation
is the power that encourages someone to do something. Harmer 2005: 51 divides motivation into two based on the factors which are intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is motivation which comes from the inside of th
e individual. It means that students’ motivation comes from themselves. Their desirability to learn depends on themselves. Extrinsic
motivation is motivation which is caused by external factors. For examples are the environment, rewards, the materials and others.
In teaching writing, one of the principle roles for teacher is as a motivator for the students. To motivate students’ ability in writing, there are some points that
the teacher can do, those are: the teacher should make a good condition for studen
ts to develop students’ ideas, encourage students’ effort and design meaningful activities for students.
b. Resource
Students need the teacher as a resource. In the teaching writing, teacher should be a resource that gives students some information and knowledge that
students’ need. When students are looking for something, the teacher is one of the most important resources they have. The teacher also can give advices,
suggestions, and comments to develop students’ writing. c.
Feedback provider The last teacher’s role in teaching writing is as a feedback provider. Giving
feedback is one of the ways to encourage students’ writing. The way the teacher gives meaningful feedback based on students’ need and different written tasks.
Feedback can make students to write better than before. Harmer 2001: 109 suggests two techniques in written feedback.
Responding is the first device to give students feedback. Rather than assessing the students’ writing, it is better to give students responds for their work. The
teacher’s responds will show how the text is and what the students can do to develop their work. The teacher should think how herhis comments will improve
the students’ work. The comments given by the teacher must be helpful for students and not censorious.
The second device is coding. The teacher can use codes as the way to give students feedback. Codes make the correction helpful than random mark to
comment the students’ writing and it is also neater. This following table is
symbols that are usually used by the teacher D Bryne in Harmer: 2001
Table 2: The Example of Symbols by D Bryne Harmer: 2001
In conclusion, there are some teacher’s roles in teaching writing. The teacher can become a motivator to encourage ability in writing. The teacher can
give the students support so they will be more confident in writing. In some cases, the teacher also is a resource to give some information or knowledge to the
students to make students get ideas to develop their writing. The students’ writing will have some proble
ms or mistakes, it will be the teacher’ job to give them feedback or comments to make students’ writing better than before. The teacher’s
roles are to help students in the teaching learning process.