Extensive Writing: A Fluency-first Approach to EFL Writing

One of the ironies surrounding the teaching of writing in high school English classes in Japan is that not much actual writing takes place. Students spend the bulk of the time transcribing single sentences with little attention given to communicating ideas (Takagi, 2001). The reasons for this have to do with the predominance of the yakudoku (grammar-translation) approach to instruction, a teacher-centered style which focuses almost exclusively on form, and the literal translation of English text into Japanese (Gorsuch, 1998). Although instructors have been known to express frustration with this approach, yakudoku is perpetuated by the university entrance exam system, which puts enormous pressure on teachers and textbook writers to focus on the grammatical structures and sentence patterns likely to appear in future tests. Moreover, research suggests that guidelines released by the Japanese Ministry of Education, while implicitly supporting a communicative approach, have been unclear about how this should be realized, resulting in classroom practices informed by “a minimalist definition of writing” (Gates, 2003: 214). Finally, most Japanese teachers of English are themselves the successful products of yakudoku instruction, which suggests that they are more likely to prefer the approach in their own classes.