THE USE OF PREWRITING IN EXPOSITORY WRITING NG · PDF fileWriting skill is vital in the...

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THE USE OF PREWRITING IN EXPOSITORY WRITING NG SIEW FONG A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Science and Education (Teaching English as a Second Language) Faculty of Education Universiti Teknologi Malaysia APRIL 2010

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THE USE OF PREWRITING IN EXPOSITORY WRITING

NG SIEW FONG

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the

requirements for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Science and Education

(Teaching English as a Second Language)

Faculty of Education

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

APRIL 2010

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I declare that this thesis (The Use of Prewriting in Expository Writing) is the result of

my own research except as cited in the references. The thesis has not been accepted for

any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature of any other degree.

Signature : .............................

Name : NG SIEW FONG

Date : 14 APRIL 2010

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To my beloved daddy and mummy,

brothers and sister.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Throughout the preparation of this thesis, I owed much to my thesis supervisor,

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Masputeriah Hamzah, whose criticism, advice, guidance, and support

had been the backbone of my research. I am also very thankful to my examiners Assoc.

Prof. Dr. Noor Abidah Mohd Omar and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Salbiah Seliman for their

guidance, advice and motivation.

My gratitude also goes to Ms. Shazwani Abd Rahman for her advice and help,

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wan Fara Adlina Wan Mansor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohamad Hassan

Zakaria, Pn. Johana Mohd Jobil, Pn. Aida A. Rahman, Ms. Fatimah Puteh, En. Mohd

Nasir Mahmood, and Ms. Rachel Tan Hooi Koon for being the markers of the

expository writing products. Without their continued support and interest, this thesis

would not have been the same as presented here.

Not forgetting, my heartfelt thanks also go to my friends, Ms. Lai Chai Hong and

Ms. Chung Pei Ni, thank you for your support. My appreciation goes to my parents, and

siblings for their encouragement and prayers. Your supports have helped me to shape the

person I am today. To the world, you are just ordinary people, but to me you are my

world…

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ABSTRACT

Writing skill is vital in the learning of English as a second language. If students

of the tertiary level can manipulate their writing skill during their study, they will be

able to cope with numerous written assignments given by their lecturers. This research

looks at the ways prewriting facilitates in expository writing and the extent to which

prewriting helps in expository writing. Ten respondents whose proficiency is below

average in English were selected from an English class for first-year students (UHB

1412) in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Five English lecturers from UTM

assisted this research as well. The respondents were divided into two groups, which were

the prewriting group and the non-prewriting group. In this research, the researcher used

the Writing Task to gain data from the two groups; Observation and Interview Questions

to gain data from the prewriting group; and the Marking of the Writing Task to gain data

from the lecturers. The findings of this research showed that the respondents gave

positive responses towards the use of prewriting in expository writing.

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ABSTRAK

Kemahiran menulis adalah sangat penting dalam pembelajaran bahasa Inggeris

sebagai bahasa kedua. Jika para pelajar universiti dapat menggunakan kemahiran

menulis dengan baik, mereka akan dapat menangani pelbagai penugasan menulis yang

diberi oleh pensyarah-pensyarah mereka. Kajian ini dijalankan dengan tujuan untuk

meninjau cara pra-penulisan membantu dalam penulisan expositori. Sepuluh responden

yang mempunyai tahap profisiensi di bawah aras biasa dalam bahasa Inggeris dipilih

dari sebuah kelas bahasa Inggeris untuk pelajar tahun pertama (UHB 1412) di Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Mereka akan dibahagikan kepada dua kumpulan, iaitu

kumpulan pra-penulisan dan kumpulan tanpa pra-penulisan. Dalam kajian ini, pengkaji

telah menggunakan kaedah Tugasan Penulisan untuk mendapatkan data daripada kedua-

dua kumpulan; kaedah Pemerhatian dan Temuramah untuk mendapatkan data daripada

kumpulan pra-penulisan; dan kaedah Pemarkahan dalam Tugasan Penulisan untuk

mendapatkan data daripada empat pensyarah. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan para

responden telah memberikan respon yang positif terhadap penggunaan pra-penulisan

dalam penulisan expositori.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

1

DECLARATION

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

ABSTRAK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF APPENDICES

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

1.2 Statement of the Problem

1.3 Purposes of the Study

1.4 Research Questions

1.6 Significance of the Study

1.7 Scope of the Study

1.8 Operational Definition

1.9 Conclusion

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LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

2.1 The Nature of Writing

2.2 The Reasons to Teach Writing Skill

2.3 The Malaysian Primary and Secondary School Syllabus

2.4 Writing as a Learning Strategy

2.5 Problems Encountered in Writing

2.6 The Process Writing Approach

2.6.1 The Stages of Process Writing

2.6.2 The Rationales of Applying Process Writing

2.7 The Definition of Prewriting

2.8 The Importance of Prewriting

2.9 Prewriting Techniques

2.9.1 Brainstorming

2.9.2 Clustering

2.10 The Definition of Expository Writing

2.11 The Criteria of Good Expository Writing

2.13 The Application of the Prewriting Stage of in Expository

Writing

2.14 Conclusion

METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

3.1 Research design

3.2 Subjects

3.3 Research Instrument

3.3.1 The Writing Task

3.3.2 Observation

3.3.3 Interview

3.3.4 The Marking Scheme

3.4 Procedure of the study

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3.5 Data Analysis

3.6 Assumptions of the study

3.7 Limitations of the study

3.8 Conclusion

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.0 Introduction

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 MUET results

4.1.2 Observation

4.1.3 Interview

4.1.4 Marks of the expository writing

4.1.5 The expository writing products of the prewriting

group and the non-prewriting group

4.2 Discussion

4.2.1 Discussion on the first research question

4.2.2 Discussion on the second research question

4.3 Conclusion

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.0 Introduction

5.1 Overview of the study

5.2 Review of the findings

5.3 Implication of the findings

5.4 Limitations of the study

5.5 Recommendation for future research

5.6 Conclusion

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REFERENCES

APPENDICES A-E

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LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE

4.1

4.2

MUET results of the prewriting subjects

MUET results of the non-prewriting subjects

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

3.1

4.1

4.2

4.3

A job advertisement (Extracted from The Star on

10th October 2009)

Handout given to learners

Stages in the writing process approach (Clouse,

1988)

Steps involved in prewriting (Clouse, 1988)

A list produced by an English class during a

brainstorming session (Wiley and Berne, 1997)

Example of clustering (Go, 1993)

Procedures of the study

The marks of the writing products of the

prewriting group in each criterion

The marks of the writing products of the non-

prewriting group in each criterion

The marks of the writing products of the

prewriting group and the non-prewriting group in

each criterion

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

UTM - Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

KBSR - Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah

KBSM - Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah

SPM - Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia

MUET - Malaysian University English Test

FP - Fakulti Pendidikan

UHB 1412 - English for Academic Communication

NAEP - National Assessment for Educational Progress

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LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX NO. TITLE PAGE

A

B

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D

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F

Pre-study questionnaires

List of interview questions

Interview sessions with the prewriting subjects

Observation record

Marking scheme

Marking products

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.0 Introduction

A language comprises four basic skills, which are speaking, listening,

reading, and writing. Listening and reading are receptive skills, whereas speaking and

writing are productive skills. One should have formed their thoughts before they write or

speak. This is why both skills are considered as higher level language skills. When one

speaks or writes, one has to have an idea in mind in the first place. However, there are

some differences between the two skills. One of them is in terms of the resources

(Chitravelu, Sithamparam, and Teh, 2005). For speaking, paralinguistic features are used

to complement the speech. These cues will help the listener to have a better

understanding of the speech. As for writing, only words on the paper and punctuation

marks are used to complement the writing. So, a writer has to place extra attention in the

use of each word, structure, forms, punctuation and paragraphs, and so on to guide the

readers to understand the writing. And this pushes Salzman’s (2001, cited in Reimer,

2001) simplistic assumption that “writing is talking on paper”.

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Since speaking occurs spontaneously, the content of the speech will be the main

focus where the minor flaws of language accuracy will be overlooked. It is generally

accepted that a normal speech usually includes false starts, ‘fillers’, and pauses

(Chitravelu, et al., 2005). This is completely different from writing. In writing, the

content and the language accuracy share the same weight. The accuracy of the language

will influence the quality of the writing. A piece of writing with few grammatical errors

will distract the readers from focusing on its content. In this way, the content of the

writing will fail to convince the readers. These comparisons between writing and

speaking show that writing is a more difficult skill to master.

Furthermore, writing skill becomes increasingly important as the learners further

their tertiary education. Most of the academic tasks are writing tasks. They are required to

complete various types of writing tasks like personal history writing, report writing,

critique writing assignment, synthesizing writing assignments and the list goes on. Apart

from improving the learners’ understanding of particular subject matter, there are other

rationale behind assigning these writing tasks.

In the words of Kellogg (2008), “Thinking is so closely linked to writing, at least

in mature adults, that the two are practically twins.” When writing, learners have to apply

their thinking skills when producing the ideas and their mind actively engages in the

language when they form sentences and paragraphs for the writing task. According to

Swales and Feak (1994: 7), tertiary writing tasks will gradually become more complex

and demanding as one goes through the programme. So, composing a piece of writing

can be regarded as a form of problem solving. When one is writing, one’s cognitive

system will be at its active period as one has to solve the problem of the subject matter

and the problem of rhetoric. From here, we can see that when one is performing a writing

task, one can indeed build one’s cognitive skills.

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Moreover, Dass (2003) suggested that writing can be viewed as a way of self-

expression, where she mentioned about affective factors in writing. Affective factors will

help the learners in increasing their motivation and lowering their anxiety. The factors

comprise three elements, which are personal experiences, personal qualities, and personal

perceptions of situations. Some of the academic writing tasks require the learners to

record their encounter of a particular subject matter. For example, the learners are taking

chemistry subjects and have to record their observation regarding an experiment that they

have carried out. They will be able to make use of the experience that they have gone

through during the experiment and their personal qualities (dedication, sensitivity, and

alertness) to form critical views during the process of writing. The incorporation of these

elements will also help the learners to establish a connection with their own writing. In

the long run, they will feel more confident to write.

According to Barton (1994, cited by Dass, 2003), writing is also seen as a way to

convey a message. Ideas and thoughts can be transformed into the form of non-verbal

communication. With the advancement of technology, there are times when learners have

to put their writing skill into use. The medium provided by the modern technology like

electronic mail, Internet Relay Chat, Yahoo Messenger, and blog require learners to use

their writing skill to express themselves and reach out for each other. If the learners are

unable to write, it will be difficult for them to use the medium to their advantage.

In addition, Chitravelu, Sithamparam, and Teoh (2007) explained that writing is

looked upon as a skill that helps to reinforce the language that is learnt in the class.

Learners have to apply their knowledge of the language like spelling, forming words and

paragraphs, and using suitable words when they are asked to write. When the teacher is

marking the writing, he/she will be able to diagnose the common errors among his/her

students and attend to them individually if some students are found to be particularly

weak in some areas. In this way, one-to-one interaction between the teacher and the

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learners can be established. From the above, we can see that writing is indeed an

important skill.

This is why the Ministry of Education in Malaysia acknowledged the importance

of writing by placing writing as one of the fundamental skills in the Kurikulum

Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM). Moreover, in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM)

English Examination, the ministry allocated 56.7 per cent solely for writing. This is to

encourage the learners to focus on improving their writing skills. The Malaysian English

University Test (MUET) has also placed writing as one of the components that is being

tested where 30 per cent are solely allocated for writing.

1.1 Background of the Study

The Malaysian Primary and Secondary School Syllabus has placed a great

emphasis on writing. However, learners still face problems when they further their

education at tertiary level. Lecturers often complain that the learners tend to present their

academic writing with grammatical mistakes, unsuitable vocabulary, disorganized

content, incoherent sentences and paragraphs, and incomplete development of ideas

which make it difficult for the lecturer to understand the content of the assignment and

thus give low marks for the writing assignment, although it has good content. Therefore,

good content with good writing skills will help the learners in conveying the important

points in writing. This is because writing is not a straightforward process but a complex

task that requires:

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“a high degree of organization in the development of ideas

and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is

no ambiguity of meaning; the use of complex grammatical

devices for focus and emphasis; and a careful choice of

vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures

to create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter

and eventual readers”

(Hedge, 1899:5)

Therefore, according to (Mohd Sahandri Ghani Hamzah and Saiffudin Kumar

Abdullah, 2009: 677), the tertiary level learners need to adopt some approaches when

they are assigned with writing tasks. However, these approaches are not taught in school.

Since it is important to master the writing skills, the approaches of teaching writing

should be taken into consideration before a writing lesson is conducted. Basically, there

are three approaches, which are the product approach, process approach, and genre-based

approach. The product approach concentrates on the final product of the writing. Another

approach is the process approach which mainly focuses on “how a text is written instead

of the final outcome” (Shahrina Md Nordin and Norhisham bt. Mohammad, 2006: 76),

Lastly, the genre-based approach focuses on the genre of the essay. In this paper, the

process approach will be looked into.

As the name suggests, the process approach focuses on the procedures involved in

writing. The procedures can be divided into three main stages, which are prewriting,

writing and rewriting (Clouse, 1988). The first stage is prewriting, where the students

undergo the process of planning the writing. The teacher will guide the learners in

forming, organizing, and developing the ideas; listing the minor points and suitable

examples for the ideas. The learners will also learn how to evaluate the relevance of the

ideas by referring to the purpose of the writing and the readers. These guide the learners

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to have a rough plan of what to write. The elaborateness of the plan will help in ensuring

the quality of the product particularly when the topic of the writing is ill-defined (Hayes

and Flower, 1986, as cited in Chai, 2006). Ill-defined is used to describe writing tasks

that have no “ready-made representation and no standard solution procedure” (Reitman,

1964 and Simon, 1973, as cited in Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 7).

The next stage is the writing stage, where the learners start to write the first draft.

Here, the writer can refer to the prewriting plan when developing ideas. If the prewriting

plan is detailed enough, then the writer can just concentrate on applying the ideas and sub

ideas in the plan without dividing their attention in organizing the ideas. This can

definitely contribute to the smooth flow of the writing process. Otherwise, the learners

have to find the trouble to organize the ideas when they write and they will take more

time to complete the first draft

The final stage is the rewriting stage. During this stage, the learners collaborate

with their teacher or peers in looking back at the first draft in terms of the content and

language. Clouse (1988) suggested that there are three sub stages in rewriting stage,

which is revising, editing and proofreading. During the revising stage, they have to focus

on the content, organization and effective expression. After that, they will move on to the

editing stage, where they have to edit their work by focusing on grammar, capitalization,

punctuation, and spelling. Lastly, the final sub stage is proofreading, where they have to

go through their writing word by word in order to identify minor mistakes.

Out of the three stages, the prewriting stage is considered important because

learners often have difficulty to start off their writing task. The undergraduates in

particular have a number of writing tasks to complete during their study. The writing

tasks are always tough because they require a deep understanding of the content as the

learners are required to present the information clearly and orderly in the writing task.

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Thus, Flower and Hayes (1983: 60) believe that prewriting helps the undergraduates to

write in three ways. One of the ways is that prewriting helps them to create a focus.

During this stage, the learners abstract the essentials from a problem and focus on the

essentials when they write. Apart from that, a detailed plan in prewriting helps them to

create “a premature solution before they enter the problem”. So, a detailed plan that has

listed out the goals and ideas can keep the undergraduates to focus on the essentials of the

problem. The last way is that the planning gives them a set of procedures to follow so that

they can systematically expose the ways they solve the problem of the content. This can

ensure the learners to fulfill the requirement of the writing task.

Among the many types of writing tasks, expository writing is a writing task that

requires learners to “describe and explain” (Shield and Galbraith, 1998: 30). When

learners are carrying out this type of writing task, they have to propose a few ideas. Then,

they have to elaborate and illustrate the ideas to make them convincing to the readers.

Learners are familiar with this type of writing task because they are exposed to this type

of writing task since their secondary years. Examples of the expository writing tasks are

The Factors that Cause Social Problems among Teenagers, The Advantages of Television

Programmes, The Advantages of the Internet and so on. After completing these writing

tasks, learners will improve their way of presenting ideas to readers.

Therefore, the main focus of this paper is prewriting and the ways it facilitates

expository writing. The subjects of this study are the first-year learners of English at the

Faculty of Education (FP) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

University undergraduates are often being criticized for their low level of

proficiency in English. This is because writing is a complex process that requires

“adaptive search, rhetorical planning, linguistic manipulation, and problem diagnosis”

(Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 6). According to them, most tertiary level writing

tasks are ill-defined or ill-structured, which means that there is “no ready-made

representation of the task and no standard solution procedure” (Reitman, 1964 and

Simon, 1973, as cited in Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 7). Hence, it is important

to plan before starting to write.

When preparing a writing plan for their assignment, the undergraduates not

merely include the points but also have to consider the purpose and the readers. These

two aspects are often neglected and cause the writing products to lack focus and relevant

ideas. In order to solve this problem, the prewriting stage should be applied when

carrying out a writing task.

Prewriting is the first stage of the process approach. This is the stage where the

learners plan for their writing by brainstorming, mind-mapping and clustering. Prewriting

is essential because it enables them to plan what to include in their writing before they

start to write, particularly in expository writing. This is because in expository writing, the

learners have to present some ideas in the writing and prewriting helps the learners to

plan, organize and develop ideas by referring to the purpose and the audience. After

planning, they will have a clear focus of the writing task and this definitely helps the

learners to start off their writing task.

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Thus, this research will place its focus on the prewriting stage of expository

writing.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to:-

1. To identify the ways in which prewriting facilitates expository writing.

2. To examine the extent to which prewriting strategies helps in expository writing.

1.4 Research Questions

This study attempts to answer the following research questions:

1. In what ways does prewriting facilitate expository writing?

2. To what extent does prewriting contribute to expository writing?