Naturally, people acquire language by listening, speaking, reading, and finally writing. This order is not flexible, so, teachers often do not feel confident and are anxious when introducing writing sooner than the other skills in their language instruction. “The doctrine that the teaching of a language should start from listening and speaking (prior to reading and writing) seems to have been so axiomatic that teachers are left powerless to challenge it.” (Sugiharto, 2007). The perception that
writing should be put in the last stage of a language acquisition must be altered, particularly in learning a language. In a learning process, writing can be learned at anytime; at the beginning or in the middle of the learning process. Writing is the
productive skill in the written mode. Writing is complicated and often seems to be the hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language. Sugiharto (2007) also points out that “in the context of early year foreign language education, literacy skills, particularly writing, are considered the most complex skills to acquire.” Therefore, the learning of this skill should be started as early as possible; even for young learners. The sooner this skill is learned, the faster the improvement will be. |