Educafl 2022. Vol 5 No 1
Doi: https://doi.org/10.21776/ub.educafl.2022.005.01.04
Students’ predominant learning style in EFL writing class
Faiz Hisyam Akbar Universitas Brawijaya [email protected]
Indonesia Peptia Asrining Tyas Universitas Brawijaya [email protected]
Indonesia
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received : July 15, 2021 Revised : January 28, 2022 Accepted : January 30, 2022
Many studies had examined writing strategies in ESL context.
However, very few studies examined writing strategies by university students within foreign language learning contexts in Indonesia. Considering that reason, the researcher conducts a survey in EFL context focusing on writing strategies mostly used by 126 students enrolled in essay writing class. This study was conducted by using quantitative method, survey design, and English Writing Strategies Inventory (EWSI) questionnaire as the instruments. The result of this study shows that the predominant learning style of the students are determining the purpose and reading some materials related to the topic before start to write, checking the logical flow through paragraph when writing, and reviewing the writing to look for and correct grammatical errors after writing. It also found that the tendency of students to use EWSI is categorized as high since the frequency of strategy use in each category is high.
Keywords:
Essay Writing, Writing Strategy, English Writing Strategy Inventory (EWSI)
Corresponding Author:
Faiz Hisyam Akbar Universitas Brawijaya [email protected] Indonesia
Peptia Asrining Tyas Universitas Brawijaya [email protected] Indonesia
1. INTRODUCTION
To be able to write a well written text, students need strategies in writing (Lili, 2015). Asmari (2013), also claimed that writing strategies is a factor that gives impact on students during the writing process as well as helps students to solve the problem in writing. Moreover, Arifin (2017) argued that writing strategies are individual strategies adopted by writers to overcome their problems during writing processes. Thus, there is an urgent need for EFL students to have writing strategies because those things are important in the academic world and in the professional field (Arifin, 2017; Asmari, 2013; Lili, 2015;).
Regarding the importance of writing strategies for students, many studies examined writing strategies in language teaching context (Bai, 2018; Maarof & Murat, 2013; Mastan et al., 2017;
Raoofi, Binandeh, et al., 2017; Raoofi, Miri, et al., 2017; Prata et al. 2018). Nevertheless, very few studies have examined the use of writing strategies by university students within foreign language learning contexts in Indonesia. Most of the research studies have addressed writing strategies on ESL students, rather than writing strategies on EFL university students. One of the studies carried out about writing strategies in EFL context is developed by Mistar et al. (2014). The study investigated some categories of strategies by Indonesian students in learning English writing skills.
The participants of this study were 766 second year students of the science department of eleven senior high schools in East Java, Indonesia.
Considering that there are only a limited number of studies examining the use of writing strategies at university level in Indonesia, this research was designed to give insight into the EFL students’ writing strategies by implementing EWSI adapted from (Hwang & Lee, 2017).
Writing Strategies
According to (Arifin, 2017), writing strategies are individual strategies adopted by writers to overcome their problems during writing processes. Writing strategies also support the students to use various types of effective writing strategies and assist the students to become writers who control their own writing (Chen, 2011). In addition, writing strategies are techniques used by writers consciously to solve the problem in the writing process as in (Arifin, 2017; Asmari, 2013;
Lili, 2015). Lili (2015) stated that writing strategies are needed to improve writing skill. Asmari (2013) claimed that writing strategies is a factor that gives impact on students during the writing process. In addition, by using writing strategies, students can solve the problem in writing. It is in line with (Arifin, 2017) who argued that writing strategies are individual strategies adopted by writers to overcome their problems during writing processes. Thus, there is an urgent need for EFL students to have writing strategies because those things are important in the academic world and in the professional field.
There are many ways to know the students’ writing strategies; one of them is English Writing Strategy Inventory (EWSI). EWSI is a technique in writing developed by Hwang and Lee (2017) that can be used by the students in writing activity. EWSI is divided into four categories. The first is before writing; in this category students will prepare their writing before they write or plan an activity. The second is when writing; in this category students will check their sentence that supports their topic or generate the ideas. The third is after writing, in this category, students will check the grammatical errors, miss spellings, and some typos in their sentences or editing and revising activity. The fourth is improving English writing skill; in this category students will memorize the English expression from the book or movie to enhance their grammar or vocabulary.
In before writing strategies, there are several questions related to taxonomy. The taxonomies are cognitive, L1 strategy, L2 strategy, and compensatory / search strategy. For example, in question number 1 “I consider what will be assessed in my writing”. It includes cognitive taxonomy. In when writing strategies, there are five taxonomies such as metacognitive, cognitive, L1 strategy, social strategy, and compensatory/search strategy. For example, question number 9 “I reread the relationship between sentences repeatedly to check the logical flow”. It includes metacognitive taxonomy. In after writing, there are three taxonomies such as metacognitive, revision strategy, and social strategy. For example, question number 17 “I use an English dictionary to correct spellings”. It includes revision strategy taxonomy. In improving English writing skill category, there is one taxonomy only that is memory strategy. For example, question number 21 “I try to memorize useful English expressions when reading English books”.
2. RESEARCH METHODS
This study used a quantitative method because the purpose was to get information about writing strategies used by the second year students of undergraduate in an essay writing class. The researcher used survey design to collect the data of the second year students of the undergraduate majoring English Language Education Program who enrolled in the Essay Writing course. This Essay writing course was chosen because the students need to implement a strategy to make an
essay. Therefore, the researcher chose essay writing class.
The Essay Writing class is divided into five parallel classes. The total number of the students in the five parallel classes is 126 students. In A class, there were 28 students. In B class, there were 29 students. In C class, there were 27 students. In D class, there were 16 students. In E class, there were 26 students. All of the students were given the questionnaire and all of them returned the completed questionnaire.
In this current research, the researcher used only one instrument which is English Writing Strategy Inventory (EWSI) questionnaire by (Hwang & Lee, 2017). The EWSI questionnaire consists of 24 questions. Each statement on the EWSI questionnaire is followed by 5 points Likert Scale starting from number 1 (“Never true”), 2 (“Usually not true”), 3 (“Somewhat true”), 4 (“Usually true”), and 5 (“Always true”). The EWSI questionnaire measures four categories of writing strategies which are before writing, when writing, after writing, and improving English writing skill. There are 24 questions in EWSI which is divided into 8 items for before writing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,and 8), 6 items for when writing (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14), 6 items for after writing (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20) and 4 items for Improving English writing skill (21, 22, 23, and 24).
In collecting the data, the researcher did the following steps: (1) Asking for permission to the essay writing lecturers to distribute questionnaires for 15 minutes. (2) Distributing the EWSI questionnaire to the students and giving an explanation about how to complete the EWSI questionnaire. (3) Asking the students to complete the questionnaire given based on the writing experiences that they have. (4) Collecting the answer sheets that have been completed by the students. The researcher used SPSS 23 to analyze and calculate the data that has been collected.
3. FINDINGS
The finding in this research will be presented in four sections as follows:
1. Before Writing Strategy
After distributing the questionnaires, the researcher got the following data about “before writing strategy” that students used. From the table 1, it shows that item 1 has mean score 3.75, item 2 has mean score 3.79, item 3 has mean score 3.91, item 4 has mean score 3.33, item 5 has mean score 2.72, item 6 has mean score 3.67, and item 7 has mean score 3.91.
Table 1.
Based on table 1, it is concluded that students prefer to use strategy in item 3 and 7 which are
“I make the purpose of my writing clear” with a mean score of 3.91 and “To generate ideas, I refer to a victory of reading materials” with a mean score of 3.91. The other strategies with high usage are item 1 “I consider what will be assessed in my writing”, 2 “I consider what the requirements of the writing task are”, and 6 “I make an outline in English”. It means that the students have predominant on those strategies. Another item is medium usage which are item 4 “When generating ideas, I write down ideas that come to mind in Indonesian” with a mean score of 3.33 and item 5 “I make an outline in Indonesian” with a mean score of 2.72 that means the students have a minor on those strategies.
2. When Writing Strategies
In when writing strategy, the researcher got the data about strategy that students used from the questionnaire that they had been filled by them. It shows in table 2. From the table, we can know that item 8 has mean score 3.86, item 9 has mean score 3.93, item 10 has mean score 3.38, item 11 has mean score 3.37, and item 12 has mean score 2.63.
Table 2.
Based on the table 2, it is concluded that students prefer to use strategy in item 9 which is “I read repeatedly through paragraphs to check the logical flow” with mean score of 3.93 and the other strategies with high usage is item 8 “I reread the relationship between sentences repeatedly to check the logical flow”. It means that the students have predominant on those strategies. Another item is medium usage which are item 10 “To clarify the purpose of the writing, I identify the expected readers” with mean score of 3.38, item 11 “If I have trouble writing in English, I write what I want to express in Indonesian first and then translate it into English” with mean scores of 3.37 and item 12 “I ask a native speaker about English expressions that I do not know or that I want to use” with mean score of 2.63. It means the students have a minor on those strategies.
3. After Writing Strategies
From the questionnaire that had been distributed to the students, the researcher got the data about strategy that students used in “after writing strategy”. It shows in table 3. From the table, we can know that item 13 has mean score 3.92, item 14 has mean score 3.84, item 15 has mean score 3.94, item 16 has mean score 4.06, item 17 has mean score 3.89, and item 18 has mean score 2.63.
Table 3.
Based on the table 3, it is concluded that students prefer to use strategy in item 16 which is “I review my work for and correct types” with mean score of 4.06 and the other strategies with high usage are item 13 “I read the final draft thoroughly from beginning to end to look for any errors”
with mean score of 3.92, 14 “I assess my writing by myself in terms of whether the topic and its supporting ideas are effectively connected” with mean score of 3.84, 15 “I use an English dictionary to correct spellings” with mean score 3.94, and 17 “I review my work to look for and correct grammatical errors” with mean score of 3.89. It means that the students have predominant on those strategies. Another item is medium usage which is item 18 “I seek feedback from a native speaker” that means the students have a minor on this strategy.
4. Improve English Writing Skill
After the researcher distributes the questionnaires, the researcher got the data about “Improve English Writing Skill” that students used. It shows in table 4. From the table, we can know that item 19 has mean score 3.69, item 20 has mean score 3.82, item 21 has mean score 3.50, and item 22 has mean score 3.51.
Table 4.
Based on the table 3, it is concluded that students prefer to use strategy in item 20 which is “I try to memorize useful English expressions when watching English soap operas or movies” with mean score 3.82 and the other strategies with high usage are item 19 “I try to memorize useful English expressions when reading English books” with mean score 3.69, 21 “I try memorize formulaic English expressions” with mean score 3.50, and 22 “I read numerous English books to become familiar with useful English expressions” with mean score of 3.51. In this strategy, there is no low usage and medium usage. It means that students tend to use all strategies in improving English writing skill strategy.
4. DISCUSSION
In this section, the discussion will be presented in four parts; before writing strategy, when writing strategy, after writing strategy, and improve writing skill strategy.
1. Before Writing Strategy
Based on the research finding, the second year students of English Language Education Department, especially in essay writing class, had activated their schemata. Most of the students in this research determine the purpose of the writing before their start to write. It is in line with (Widodo, 2008), pre-writing was a stage to activate a student's schemata and this stage aimed at stimulating ideas or generating ideas for the students. Further, schemata provided knowledge that can help students in doing planning (Sun, 2014).
Another strategy used by the students in this research is to read a reading material before they start to read. They assume that by reading some sources related to the topic of what they are going to write is very useful for them in generating ideas as stated by (Gebril & Plakans, 2014) that there are some advantages of reading for writing. By reading material, it could help students to gain ideas about the topic and to shape opinions related to the topic. From the research finding above, we can say that the students had some strategy before starting to write. Students tend to determine the purpose of their writing and read some reading materials to expand their ideas.
2. When Writing Strategy
Based on the research finding, the second year students of English Language Education Department, especially in essay writing class were aware of the logical flow in making paragraphs.
This finding confirms some theory related to ‘writing stage’ by (Alves, 2008; Hedge, 2005;
Widodo, 2008). Widodo (2008) argued that in drafting, the students are asked to develop their ideas into rough drafts without considering the grammatical accuracy. Hedge (2005) suggested that the students can use techniques of free writing and loop writing. The main purpose of freewriting is to make students to be more concentrated on the content while by using loop writing the students can write their ideas then summaries those ideas into text in one sentence. This technique helped the student to avoid unclear statements, the repetition of ideas, and to produce logical flowing text.
In addition, (Alves, 2008) stated that students must be aware of the logical flow to achieve coherence.
3. After Writing Strategy
In this stage, the result of this research showed that students in essay writing class preferred to review their work to look for any error in terms of both mechanical and grammatical errors. This finding is in line with (Alodwan & Ibnian, 2014) who proved that the editing stage could be viewed as the process of correcting spelling and grammar in a piece of writing. Therefore, they check and correct the spelling, grammar, and punctuation on their draft to come up to the final draft. Further, (Tyas, 2012; Tyas & Safitri, 2019) also stated that students tend to be actively involved in the
editing and revising stage since they feel that it can improve their quality of writing.
4. Improve English Writing Skill
From the questionnaire, it was found that the students pay attention to their own weaknesses in writing. Therefore, they do activities that can cover their weaknesses by memorizing useful English expressions when watching movies. It is in line with the finding of a research conducted by Tyas (2020), it was found that by making the students aware of their own strength and weakness can motivate the students to improve their skill in writing. Further, the finding of this current study supports a theory about the importance of reflection in writing in which to improve English writing skill, the students should do reflection on their process. Reflection is an activity that requires the students to reflect on what they have learned during the writing process (Alves, 2008; Widodo, 2008). This stage aims to encourage the students to self-evaluate their strengths and weaknesses of their writing abilities. If their weaknesses are about English expression, they should do activities that can increase their English expression such as memorizing the English expression on movies or books. Movies give impact in five different areas of language teaching: teaching writing, teaching vocabulary, teaching grammar, teaching oral communication, and teaching cultural aspects (Iranmanesh & Darani, 2018; Ruusunen, 2011).
5. CONCLUSION
Based on the findings and the discussion of this research, the result shows that the tendency of students to use EWSI is categorized as high. This is one of the reasons that students in the current essay writing course get high scores. Apparently, they had been following the EWSI. Nevertheless, students still need to be encouraged and guided by the lecturer to maximize the use of these strategies to improve their writing. The lecturer is still an important part of the development of the students’ writing ability. Therefore, by knowing the students writing strategies, it will be easier to guide the students to be involved in writing activities. In this way, the students will be interested in writing lessons as well as the students can give their best effort on the learning process.Last but not least, it is suggested then for further researchers to bring this study to the next level of research method by using interview or test writing proficiency to enrich and strengthen the result of the study. It is also suggested to conduct similar research on the other level of writing class in university level such as paragraph writing, academic writing, creative writing, etc.
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