Using process approach in teaching guided essay writing for year 6 pupils

Abstract

This study sets out to investigate the use of the process approach to teach guided essay to primary pupils. This study is to explore the problems faced by the pupils in writing guided essay and to identify the effects of using process writing in teaching guided essay. This study implemented the classification scheme of Quasiexperimental design adapted from Cresswell (2008) which deals with a single group test for the post-test, treatments and pre-test. Two sets of questionnaires were designed for the pupils and the teachers to answer. At the same time interviews were also conducted. These instruments were used as tools to examine the influence of teaching and learning essay using the process approach on the pupils. Sixty pupils from year 6 and five teachers were selected to participate in this study. The pupils were asked to write guided essays and the essays were marked using the assessment marking scheme of the UPSR format. Initially, by referring to the pre-test conducted, the pupils were unable to write their guided essay due to their weakness in idea organization, word choice and sentence fluency. However, after 4 weeks of treatment lessons, results in their post-test showed the improvements in the guided essay writing. To conclude, using process approach in teaching guided essay to primary pupils is an effective method. Although it might take longer durations to evaluate its effectiveness, with the teachers and pupils co-operation it can be achieved.