Writing is a journey into the unknown

I don't think I can point out the exact day I first wrote a composition in English, but it must have been in my late years of primary school. I remember I quite enjoyed writing at that time, and I still found it appealing during my secondary school years. I used to take pleasure in writing in Spanish as well, though I was not very good at it.

It was when I entered the Teacher Training College in 2007 and attended Language I that I realized facing a writing task had mutated from a pleasant experience into an awfully dreadful one. I encountered difficulties as regards paragraph organisation, punctuation, vocabulary... Many aspects required polishing. Anyway, what I found the hardest was the first step: building the plot of the story. That could take me hours! Therefore, in-class compositions meant hell to me. However, I somehow managed to pass all the writing tasks and the final exam; I believe it was because I did improve throughout the year.

Language II was my next challenge. With the passing of time, I was able to generate interesting ideas more quickly and achieve satisfying results, so I did not suffer from "writing phobia" this time. Anyway, writing in class was still one of my weak points -maybe the weakest. So, although I passed all my compositions with quite good marks, I decided not to sit for the final exam in December and kept on postponing it for a whole year, when I finally passed it.

This year so far I've been through a totally new approach in Language III, that is, process writing: it involves peer- and tutor-feedback instances before handing in a piece of writing to the teacher. It sort of lowers my "writing apprehension", that is, the pressure and the sense of insecurity I usually experience when writing. Besides, readers' comments on your work largely contribute to enriching it. I hope this year's system of writing will boost my confidence and, little by little, lead me towards becoming a more independent writer. A writer who will be able to become aware of the readers' possible expectations and struggle to do the best to fulfil them.


Self-corrections & after-writing reflections