Second Language Writing Tasks: The Gains of the Cognitive-Mentalist Error Analysis in Essay Writings

Abstract

Writing is a skill, which demands that students plan and organize their imagination clearly and in sequential order to fulfill the essence of writing which is communicative. Teaching the writing skill is more difficult than teaching and practicing other language skills because of its generative tendency. It is an extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate the control of a number of variables simultaneously and intelligently to achieve the communicative goal. By implication, it means the writer must plan the content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and formation of ideas. Successful writing is an end product of intelligent reasoning and good planning.

It is from the complexity platform above that one can rightly view the audrous task of students of English as a Second Language (ESL) extraction. The interference from the First Language (FL) or Mother Tongue (MT) is inevitable at this trying stage. Interaction goes on globally and there is the need to be able to interact verbally and in the written form acceptably. The approach offers in the Cognitive Mentalist submission is the focus of this paper. The students are expected to express their views, imagination, experience and observations freely unmindful of errors. This approach is primarily expressive and laden with errors of the writers. The searchlight is therefore beamed on how the analysis of errors committed can be of benefits to both the ESL learner and teacher.