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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(2): 7-12


Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

The Effect of Product/Process-Oriented


Approach to Teaching and Learning Writing Skill
on University Student Performances
Taher Sarhady
Technical University, Sanandaj, Iran
Email: t4sarhady@yahoo.com
Abstract There is no doubt that writing is the most
difficult skill for L2 learners to master. The difficulty lies
not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in
rendering these ideas into readable texts. L2 writers have to
pay attention to higher level skills of planning and
organization as well as lower level skills of spelling,
punctuation, word choice, grammar and so on. The present
study is an attempt to investigate the effect of
product/process-oriented approach of teaching writing on
university student performances. It seems that focusing
merely on the final product of writing cannot result in
learning optimal writing based on English conventions.
Linguistic inaccuracies can also have negative effect on the
overall quality of students writing. Process-oriented
approach, on the other hand, focuses on the steps involved in
drafting and redrafting a piece of work, i.e. the linearity of text is
seriously under question in that producing a text involves
recursive procedures. Dividing the participants into two control
and experimental groups and manipulating distinctive
techniques in each group, we have come to the conclusion that a
process-oriented approach to teaching writing is more effective
than the product-oriented one. The outcome of the study can
have valuable implications for teaching writing in FL situations.

proposition to a great extent and it might be due to the


fact that no language teaching method per se can embrace
all language skills in regard to its goals.
A premise prevalent in communicative approach is to
use oral and/or written mode(s) of language to learn it.
However, it seems that this is not applicable to foreign
language learners. The reason lies in that they should
learn rudimentary components of language including
vocabulary, grammar, mechanics of writing, etc. to be
able to get their simple messages across through writing
although the mere knowledge of these ingredients does
not necessarily mean that students can express
themselves in writing. According to Krashens monitor
model(1983), this type of procedure results in language
learning rather than language acquisition. Thinking in L2
is a motto emphasized in all language teaching
approaches advocating the use of language but it needs
persistent effort and transaction in different realms over a
long time.
Nunan (1999) argues that producing a coherent and
fluent piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing
in language for native speakers, and for foreign language
learners the challenges are enormous. Richards and
Renandya (2002) also point out that writing is the most
difficult skill for L2 learners to master because of two
factors: generating and organizing ideas, on the one hand
and translating these ideas into readable texts, on the
other. L2 writers have to pay attention to higher level
skills of planning and organizing as well as lower level
skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so on.
The little systematic need to writing for the
overwhelming majority of FL learners throughout the
world adds to the complex and daunting dimension of
writing.
An assumption traditionally held is that writing
happens in a vacuum. If it was so static and flat, the skill
could be operationalized much more conveniently than
what it is. According to Johnson and Perry (2012),
Moffett (1983) and Kinneavy (1971), writing is always
embedded in a rhetorical situation in which the
relationships between the addressor, the addressee(s), the
text and reality are constantly changing. Mastuda (1997)
also concedes that the writer has to negotiate his/her own

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;

Accepted April 26, 2015

2015 Khate Sefid Press


7

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics


2015; 1(2): 7-12
Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

view of these elements of writing with the views held by


the readers. From another perspective, Bakhtin (1986)
believes that although each text is unique in some ways, a
text cannot be understood totally in terms of itself
because the text is always situated in a network of other
texts called intertextuality. When Silva and Matsuda
(2000) point to reality in the development of a text, they
concede that reality may seem stable, but it can be
interpreted in many ways. Cognitive empathy (Brown,
2007) is another significant variable that should be
estimated on the part of writers to make their output flux
and mobile.
Another controversial aspect of writing pedagogy has
been the tension between process and product approaches
to the teaching of writing. Product-oriented approach
focuses on the final product, the coherent, error-free text.
Process approach, on the other hand, focuses on the steps
involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work.
According to Nunan (1999), proponents of process
writing assert that there will never be the perfect text, but
that one can get closer to perfection through producing,
reflecting on, discussing, and reworking successive drafts
of a text. In product approach the concerted emphasis is
over the sentence level grammar, ie sentence as the
building blocks of discourse, and discourse as the product
of fitting one building block on to the text. Such an
approach is consistent with sentence-level structuralist
linguistics and bottom-up processing. According to
Chenoweth and Hayes(2003), in process approach the
linearity of text is seriously under question in that
producing a text involves several recursive procedures.
White and Arndt (1991) delineate several steps of
teaching writing including drafting, focusing, structuring,
reviewing, generating ideas and evaluation before a
learner actually produces a first draft. Having the
aforementioned parts and parcels of writing in mind, the
present paper is an attempt to crystallize the impact of
teaching writing on students learning.

pieces of language are learnt integratively or in isolation


by FL learners with regard to immense contexts in the
world, they are indispensable for learning any receptive
or productive skill.
During the first week of the term, all the participants
took an English proficiency test as pretest involving
vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension. The
test was the TOEIC practice test from The Complete
Guide to TOEIC (Rogers, 1997). According to the
students' performances on the test, the participants were
placed into two homogenous groups. The result of the
analysis of variance in the pretest showed that there was
no significant difference between the two groups scores.
Therefore, each group was assigned to a different
treatment of writing instruction.
B. Materials and Procedures
Writing skill was instructed to both groups in two
consecutive classes for a term by the present researcher.
In the first group (the product approach to writing) the
focus was upon the final product of writing like an essay
and what it should look like. Each session the instructor
introduced one or more conventions of writing like thesis
statements, topic sentences, major and minor support
sentences, different paragraph organizations, the
framework of an article, etc. and the students were asked
to submit their assignments on that respect in their next
class. Having surveyed the students' papers, we assigned
a letter grade to each one and then read out those model
compositions which had met certain standards of
prescribed English rhetorical style, accurate grammar,
vocabulary
use,
organization
and
mechanical
considerations and finally returning them to students with
no chance of their future revision. In the other class (the
process approach to writing), the students were grouped
together in threes and the teacher helped the students
build repertoires of strategies for prewriting, drafting and
rewriting through giving students time to write and
rewrite, letting them discover what they want to say,
giving them feedback throughout the composing process,
encouraging feedback from both the instructor and the
peers, and including individual conferences between the
teacher and students during the process of composition.
For instance, the students were given texts to read inside
and outside the classroom for the generation of ideas
about the topic of composition. Other prewriting and
writing strategies like skimming, scanning, clustering,
brainstorming, free writing, discussing a topic,
questioning, and peer-editing were also practiced and the
students tried to improve their compositions after getting
feedback from several sources. In this way, a composition
sometimes took a few weeks to be developed.
To assess the students proficiency level in writing
English at the end of the term, we gave both groups of
students a general topic to write about for their final term
examination. They were not restricted to develop the

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
8

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics


2015; 1(2): 7-12
Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

TABLE 2. THE NUMBER OF ANY TYPE OF ERROR BY THE


TWO GROUPS

topic in any conventional way taught and practised


beforehand. The impetus behind this procedure was to let
the students write naturally and spontaneously far from
the imposition of English rhetoric. According to Kakava
(1995), certain culturally determined ways of thinking
and communicating will transfer themselves to second
language texts. For instance, it has been noted that many
Asian cultures are characterized by a high degree of
indirectness. This, presumably, would create difficulties
for L2 writers who are required to produce academic
texts with an explicitly stated topic sentence followed by
supporting evidence. Therefore, to neutralize some
extraneous variables like the effect of the rubrics of the
test and conventions of English writing taught explicitly
in advance, we did not intend to control and manipulate
the students production.

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

Table 3 also depicts the main scores and standard


deviations of the presets, posttest, and gain scores of
parallel groups under study.
TABLE 3. COMPARISON OF PROFICIENCY KNOWLEDGE OF
THE TWO PARALLEL GROUPS
Pretest
Posttest
Gain Scores
Groups
Product-oriented Group
Process-oriented Group

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

The design of the research is pretest posttest


comparison group (Hatch & Farhady, 1981) to avoid
problems associated with internal and external validity.
After the papers were analytically scored, we found out
that only about twenty five per cent of papers belonging
to the product-writing class included topic sentences and
their development and the other seventy five per cent
was devoid of them; however, about sixty per cent of
papers written by the process-writing class contained
topic sentences and their development. The average
number of words used in papers developed by processoriented approach to teaching is about five hundred, but
that for papers following the product-oriented approach is
about three hundred and seventy. There are about one
thousand and four hundred errors in all papers. The errors
have been categorized under grammar, inappropriate use
of vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and
sentence patterns. As Table 1 indicates, the average
percentage of the above deviations is 53, 21, 11, 6, 5 and
4, respectively.

Scrutinizing Table 1, we found out that grammatical


and lexical errors have occupied about seventy four per
cent of all errors made by the two groups and this is not
out of the blue since teaching experience and research
findings ratify the view that these two components are the
most difficult ones for Iranian learners. It is interesting to
mention that a great percentage of grammatical errors in
the data pool is related to misuse of tenses, plurality and
singularity, modifiers, prepositions, incorrect verb forms,
connectives, quantifiers, relative pronouns, voice,
comparative and superlative adjectives and conditional
sentences. The errors in vocabulary are mostly associated
with inappropriate use of words having similar forms
with distinctive meanings (for example, economic and
economical, product and production), coinage (eg
concernable, worser, satisfiable) and negative transfer of
idioms from L1 to L2.
The other twenty six per cent of errors made by both
groups is attributed to spelling, punctuation,
capitalization and sentence patterns (only four per cent).
In other words, about twenty two per cent of errors
manifests deviation from elements of mechanics of
writing. It is evident that the average length of papers
influenced by process-oriented approach to teaching
writing is more than that of papers produced by the other
group.
According to Table 3, T- test analysis of pretest mean
scores of the parallel groups (product- oriented group
7.20 versus process-oriented group 6.96) indicated no
significant difference [t(58)= .51, Ns]. However, t-test
analysis of the mean gain scores of the process-oriented
group (6.42) was significantly higher than the main gain
score of the product-oriented students (3.27) in the posttest, so [(t (58) = 9.36, P<001)]. Therefore, there are
significant differences between the gain scores of
experimental and control groups. This indicates that the

TABLE 1. THE AVERAGE PERCENTAGE OF ALL STUDENTS'


ERRORS IN WRITING
grammar

vocabulary
items

spelling

punctuation

capitalization

sentence
pattern

53%

21%

11%

6%

5%

4%

Out of the above errors eight hundred and fifty four


items (sixty one per cent) belong to twenty two papers
following the traditional product-based approach and the
other five hundred forty six errors (thirty nine per cent)
belong to the other groups. Furthermore, Table 2 shows
the number of any type of errors made by the two
different groups, those who have developed writing
through process orientation (group 1) and those following
product orientation (group 2).

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics


2015; 1(2): 7-12
Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

process-oriented group outperformed the productoriented group by a significant margin, proving the
noticeable impact of process-oriented approach to
teaching writing.

pioneering work of Vygotsky places the social context at


the heart of learning and communication process. Lantolf
(2000) as a sociocultural theorist has drawn attention
away from individual cognition towards the sharing and
distribution of mental activities among learners to the
extent that he believes the mind rarely works alone and
writing as a learning activity lends itself to the
construction of texts by students working together.

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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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics


2015; 1(2): 7-12
Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

those following process-oriented approach could develop


the topic with more details and systematicity than those
adopting the product-oriented approach; thus, motivating
students to pursue authentic structures enhances their
abilities in natural writing. Furthermore, because of the
complexity of writing in different genres for academic
purposes, it necessitates further time and effort in
language planning of universities than that of the current
situation.

REFERENCES
Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late
Essays(V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Brown. H. D. (2007). Principles of Language
Learning and Teaching (5th ed.). London: Longman.
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An
Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (2nd ed.).
London: Longman.
Chastain, K. (1988). Developing Second Language
Skills: Theory and Practice (3rd ed.). New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich Publishers.
Chenoweth, A. & Hayes, J. (2003). The inner voice.
Written Communication, 20(1), 99-118.
Hatch, E. & Farhady, H. (1981). Research Design and
Statistics for Applied Linguistics. Massachusetts:
Newbury House.
Johnson, L. & Perry, K. (2012). What is literacy? A
critical overview of sociocultural perspectives. Journal of
Language and Literacy Education, 8(1), 50-71.
Kakava, C. (1995). An Analysis of Greek and English
Discourse Features. Paper presented at San Francisco
State University.
Kinneavy, J. (1971). A Theory of Discourse: The Aims
of Discourse. New York: Norton.
Krashen, S. (1983). Newmarks ignorance hypothesis
and current second language acquisition theory. In S.
Glass and L. Selinker (Eds.), Language Transfer in
Language Learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Lantolf, J. (2000). Second language learning as
mediated process. Language Teaching, 33, 79-96.
Matsuda, P. K. (1997). Contrastive rhetoric in
context: a dynamic model of L2 writing. Journal of
Second Language Writing, 6(1), 45-60.
Moffett, J. (1983). Teaching the Universe of
Discourse. Portsmouth: Cook Press.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and
Learning. New York: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
Richards, C. R. & Renandya, W. A. (2002).
Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of
Current Practice. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and
Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Rogers, B. (1997). The Complete Guide to TOEIC.
Singapore: Thomson Singapore Pte Ltd.
Saeidi, M. & Sahebkheir, F. (2011). The effect of
model essays on accuracy and complexity of EFL

VI. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH


Since it is improbable to separate exactly the
components and procedures of the above-mentioned
approaches to teaching writing from each other, the result
of any research in this conjunction should be
conservatively generalized. The would-be researchers are
suggested that they add another group as process-product
exerted group to their studies so that the effect of an
eclectic approach is also delineated. Furthermore, gender
as an extraneous variable can be taken into consideration,
viz the research can be reiterated with two distinctive
groups of male and female students through one single
approach to see whether it makes any considerable
difference or not. Finally, more longitudinal studies in
cooperation with larger number of participants are needed
to investigate the unbiased impact of the approaches on
the efficiency of EFL learners' writing.

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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics


2015; 1(2): 7-12
Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching Language as


Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

learners' writing performance. Middle-East Journal of


Scientific Research, 10(1), 130-137.
Schmitt, N. (2000). An Introduction to Applied
Linguistics. London: Arnold.
Silva, T. & Matsuda, P. K. (2000). Landmark Essays
on ESL writing. London: Routledge.
Sutikno, M. K. (2008). Responding to students'
writing (Teaching writing or assessing it?). Journal of
Pendidikan Penabur, 10(7), 51-59.
White, R. & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing.
London: Longman.

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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