Technical Writing Difficulties Faced by High School Students in Dzongkha Subject

Abstract

This study explores the technical difficulties and the causes of writing difficulties school students face in writing in Dzongkha. Using social constructivism, 16 participants (ten students and six teachers) were involved. In addition to document analysis, the participants were also interviewed to find the problems of writing in Dzongkha. The findings suggest that application of Dzongkha in its written form was one of the most difficult tasks among the four language skills. The writing difficulties faced by the students were the usage of correct spelling, grammar, vocabulary, word structure, sentence structure, paragraph structure, expression and handwriting. Among these, spelling was one of the most difficult parts while writing in Dzongkha. The causes of writing difficulties in Dzongkha were the poor foundation of Dzongkha writing and reading skills, low prestige of Dzongkha language/subject, time constraint, pronunciation related problems, limited resource/facility and professional support for the Dzongkha teachers, less career scope for Dzongkha background students and poor reading habit. It was also due to lack of additional Dzongkha medium based subject, inadequate modern ways of teaching learning strategies, and also because of minimal parents’ support, less personal interest and perseverance to learn and write in Dzongkha. The solutions to the writing problems were to give adequate time for Dzongkha subject, maintain reading and writing portfolios to enhance genres writing, teaching the clear meaning and concept of different words and terminologies having same pronunciation, and adequate teacher written response needs to be emphasized and implemented. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations to different stakeholders are also provided.