Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Index
Terms
Product/Process-oriented
approach,
Literacy, Oracy, Self- editing, Contrastive Rhetoric
I. INTRODUCTION
It is evident that during the grammar-translation
method writing skill received major attention as one of
the halves of literacy. Since the inception of the
audiolingual movement more importance has been
attached to oracy comprised of listening and speaking.
According to Chastain (1988), it seems strange that in the
case of oral skills, less importance is given to the
receptive skill of listening, while in the other case less
importance is accorded to the productive skill of writing.
The analysis of traditional and modern language teaching
methods in the history of pedagogy strengthens the above
Received February 10, 2015;
II. METHOD
A. Participants
Forty four male and female junior university students
majoring in English language and literature at University
of Kurdistan were selected as the sample. They had
passed twelve, ten, four and two credit units in reading
comprehension, grammar, writing and vocabulary,
respectively as solid foundations with respect to writing
skill. Bearing the controversial views elaborated in mind,
no one denies the in/direct influence of the above courses
on writing by FL learners. It seems that the linguistic
indices presented by any writer to activate the readers
schemata (Widdowson, 1978) cannot be actualized
without a good command of linguistic elements operating
in incorporation with one another. Whether these bits and
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Groups
Group 1
Group 2
Grammar
Vocabulary
items
Spelling
Punctuation
Capitalizati
on
Sentence
pattern
270
405
132
185
64
104
36
61
31
47
21
40
Mean
7.20
6.96
SD
4.82
4.13
Mean
10.56
13.47
SD
4.30
4.19
Mean
3.27
6.42
SD
1.38
1.14
IV. RESULTS
III. DATA ANALYSIS
A. Findings
vocabulary
items
spelling
punctuation
capitalization
sentence
pattern
53%
21%
11%
6%
5%
4%
process-oriented group outperformed the productoriented group by a significant margin, proving the
noticeable impact of process-oriented approach to
teaching writing.
B. Discussion
Writing as a paramount and at the same time the most
difficult productive skill calls for gradual, sustained and
profound learning on the part of FL learners. University
students in Iran in general and the sample in our study in
particular do not receive any direct instruction in writing
before being admitted to universities. Teaching a few
credits in writing traditionally at universities cannot
promote students abilities to the level of desirability.
Writing involves immersing totally in genuine practice,
i.e. dealing with types of communication with clear
purposes, audience, addressors, messages and other
parameters of authentic discourse. However, most of the
practices made in writing courses are so vague,
mechanical and artificial that they are not appealing for
students to pursue them in a problem-solving way.
According to Kaplan (1966 as cited in Brown, 2007),
English discourse is schematically described as
proceeding in a straight line while oriental written
discourse is in a spiraling line. In other words, there may
be some relationship between cultural thought patterns
and discourse. For example, many Asian cultures are
characterized by a high degree of indirectness while
English people are direct in writing with an explicitly
stated topic sentence followed by supporting evidence.
Meanwhile, developing topic sentences in English
paragraphs may be characterized as the sign of
industrialized and busy societies. Having a moderate
view regarding the above arguments, it seems that
rhetoric might be culturally bound to some extent.
The findings of our research is in line with those of
Saeidi and Sahebkheir (2011) and Sutikno (2008) in that
processed-based approach is more effective than the
product-based one since it allows the students to explore
and develop personal approach to writing. Accordingly,
the main disadvantage of product-based approach is that
model patterns prevent L2 learners from creativity, i.e. it
encourages the learners to use the same plan in different
settings regardless of content and context of situation,
thereby inhibiting writers rather than empowering them.
Intriguingly, our participants in the processed-based
group outperformed not only in higher level skills of
planning and organizing ideas but in lower level skills of
spelling, punctuation, choice of vocabulary, capitalization
and grammatical structures as well. The wide gap
appearing between the two groups can be attributed to
two different perspectives prevalent in methodology;
product-oriented approach based on cognitive perspective
presumes writing in terms of a problem-solving activity
in experimental conditions irrespective of broader social
contexts, while process-oriented approach based on the
V. IMPLICATIONS
It may be widely accepted that writing should be
taught as a process rather than as a product; however, the
product-based approach is more often adopted. This may
be due to lack of knowledge among teachers about the
value of a process approach, and also the lack of belief in
its practicality. By its nature, process writing is time
consuming and teachers' resistance is likely compounded
when they encounter crowded classes. Putting all things
together,
collaborative
problem-solving
tasks,
brainstorming, shared planning, multiple drafts, peer
feedback and revision have been suggested as relevant
activities within the cycle of process writing. With
reference to the related literature and the outcome of the
research mentioned above, the following implications are
suggested.
Although writing skill needs sustained effort and
practice, it seems that following a process-oriented
approach rather than a product-oriented one is more
influential for FL learners in that they are involved in
some recursive and recycling stages demanding planning,
drafting, revising, editing, peer working, etc.
The ultimate goal in writing a text is to develop a
cohesive and coherent discourse according to its context
of use; however, this does not relegate the crucial role of
its linguistic building blocks including grammar,
vocabulary, mechanics of writing and so on. Nunan (ibid)
argues that higher order choices like the discourse context
often determine lower order elements like grammatical
forms, choice of vocabulary, use of tenses, etc. Teachers
of writing should not sacrifice these subskills in favor of
macro-structures since lack of attention to them can lead
to ambiguity, misunderstanding and failure in
communication process on many occasions.
One of the insurmountable problems FL learners
encounter is the acquisition of the relationship between
forms and functions which cannot be obtained overnight.
Although teachers of writing should emphasize the oneto-one noncorrespondence between forms and functions,
it is the responsibility of teachers of grammar, vocabulary
and other sub/skills as well to elaborate on them from the
outset of language learning. Teachers can diagnose these
inappropriate uses of elements through the students
writing practice and give credit to their appropriate use in
context.
The analysis of the students writing demonstrated that
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AUTHOR
Taher Sarhady has an MA in applied linguistics and is a
lecturer at Sanandaj Technical University. Some of his
published books include A Remedial English Course for
University Students, ESP for Students of Accounting
and Zara, the Shepherds Love (translated). He has also
published papers in international and national journals.
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