The Contribution of Discourse Analysis to Writing Skill in ESL

Abdul Latif 2011120038

Discourse analysis can contribute to English Language Teaching (ELT) in many ways.

One of the ways that will be discussed in this paper is focus on how discourse analysis

contribute to writing skill in English as Second Language Teaching (ESL). According to

Mahbub (2012), for students who want to improve their English writing skill, they can use

discourse as their primary resource. The English teacher can organize the writing classroom

so that the student themselves are able to learn in analyzing the written discourse of the

society around them. Then, the student can use the appropriate result of their own analysis

for their own writing purpose. By doing that, they can set and personalize their learning and

also choosing discourse materials that suitable for their own proficiency level and the area

that they interested. Later on, the teacher can introduce the techniques and tasks to

analyze specific discourse so that it will make student more independent in developing their

ability in writing English as second language. With discourse analysis also, the student are

able to explore variety of written genres or types of written discourse. Each genre presents a

different set of rhetorical choices such as lexicon and grammar to format, content, and

organization which students can study and adapt to their own writing. “Due to cultures use

genres to accomplish their social interactions, discourse analysis provides a window on the

values and priorities of the community that created them” (Mahbub, 2012). Moreover, the

role of discourse analysis offers a more powerful identity for an ESL student than foreigner,

or nonnative speaker.

Resouces: Mahbub, M. (2012, May 30). Discourse Analysis and Language Teaching. Retrieved September 8, 2014, from http://englishstudyhelp.com/2012/05/discourse-analysis-and-language.html