Topic sentence and supporting sentences: Revisit 2

Where do I teach? How’s my pupils’ English language proficiency? In this write-up, I am sharing some details about my school and my pupils’ performance in the SPM 1119 Examination; not to be boastful but merely to clarify why in my teaching context I do give much emphasis on my pupils’ ability to write a topic sentence accurately when they respond to each writing task. In general, most of my pupils possess a good command of English and they have the ability to write. In fact, many could write essays very well. This is proven if you look at SMK Sultan Badlishah’s results for SPM 1119; GP 0.92 in 2021, GP 1.02 in 2022 and GP 0.89 in 2023. Every year, at least 90% of our SPM candidates scored A-, A or A+ in the English Language paper.

Absolutely, they are schools whose GP for SPM 1119 is much better than us. Of course, every school also does have at least a group of pupils who are very good in English. Even though those proficient pupils could write, I would say that many of them have to be coached to write properly. For sure, all of them could respond to each writing task well. However, if we examine what and how they write, I am pretty sure many of the English teachers would agree with me that some of the pupils do not know how to write a proper topic sentence as shown in the paragraphs below.  

Essay question for classroom practice:

You class has been discussing on public transportation. You teacher has asked you to write an essay about it. In your essay, you should write about:

· your experience using a public transport recently

· the progress in the Malaysian public transport system that you have seen so far

· ways to encourage Malaysians to use public transport more frequently

Let me share with you paragraphs written by three of my Form 5 pupils based the question above which was given as a class practice after I introduced to them topic sentence and supporting sentences. Despite being given notes and clear explanation, obviously, some pupils still made mistakes when they wrote. Here are a few common mistakes.

Sample 1:

By right, the pupil should write one of these topic sentences:

So far, I have personally seen progress in the Malaysian public transport system. OR

Malaysian public transport system has shown good progress so far. OR

In my eyes, there is great progress in the Malaysian public transport system.

As teachers we must keep reminding our pupils to use the keywords in the writing task to form a topic sentence. They cannot add any detail in the topic sentence. The details should be presented in the supporting sentences, one by one.

Sample 2:

Do you think this paragraph answers Task 2 clearly; “the progress in the Malaysian public transport system that you have seen so far?” I don’t think so. The main reason why it happens is due to the absence of the topic sentence which carries the main idea of the paragraph.

Sample 3:

The third task for the essay is “ways to encourage Malaysians to use public transport more frequently”. Before I asked my pupils to write this essay, as mentioned earlier, they were exposed to topic sentence and supporting sentences. Yet, one of my pupils still wrote a wrong topic sentence. Imagine if our potential A pupils are not exposed to topic sentence and supporting sentences at all!

Teachers, who says teaching writing among our second language learners is easy? Who claims that just by one exposure to or lesson on topic sentence and supporting sentences all our pupils will be able to write them well? In my case, I will keep coaching all my pupils to write topic and supporting sentences till they get it right. In essence, as English teachers we must be fully aware of our pupils' weaknesses and give our best attempt to improve each weakness. We must teach what we must. Most of our pupils rely on us when it comes to making improvements in their essay writing. I am staunchly confident their content will be delivered clearly and with high relevance (as required in the mark scheme) when they are able to write the main idea (which is written in a topic sentence) and it is explained clearly and coherently (which are written in two or three supporting sentences). Would you agree with me?