Writing Strategies used by Primary ESL learners.

ABSTRACT

Researches on Language learning strategies are being carried out vastly. Even so, these studies
mostly focus on secondary school and university context. There has been insufficient research
that investigates primary school students’ language learning strategy. The main objective of the
study was to investigate the language learning strategies of primary 4 and primary 5 students in a
rural school in Batu Kikir, Negeri Sembilan in learning strategies they prefer employing when
completing writing task. Data were collected using survey questionnaire distributed to 53
primary 4 and primary 5 students. They responded to the questionnaire adapted from Language
Strategy Use Inventory by Cohen, Oxford and Chi (2002). The adapted version of Language
Strategy Use Questionnaire consists of 10 statements concerning the writing strategies. The
responses were calculated through statistical analysis in terms of mean and percentage by using
Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The finding shows that, students prefer using three
strategies namely to plan out in advance how to write academic papers, review what is already
written before continuing to write more and try to get feedback from others, especially friends. It
is recommended that further research can be carried out to find out how lower primary students
employ writing strategy.

Keywords: language learning strategies, writing skill, primary, English as a Second Language

INTRODUCTION

Griffiths (2007) defines language learning strategies as activities consciously chosen by

learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning. These definitions inform us
that learning strategies are essential in learning a language. Al-Khasawneh (2010) argued that
huge number of international contacts, regarding non-native to non-native communication and
deals are carried out through English in a massive number of settings, including trade,
diplomacy, tourism, journalism, science and technology, politics, etc. This statement reflects the
importance of learning proper writing skill from the beginning in order to be a competent writer
in today’s situation. Fedderholdt (1997) stated that language learners who are capable of using a
wide variety of language learning strategies (LLS) appropriately can better improve their
language skills because they are better equipped. Thus, the need to learn to write in English for
different purposes is deemed as an important skill. In ESL education field, the importance of
writing skill is dominant due to the need of completing assignments, projects, examinations etc.
Writing should receive more attention in ESL classes in order to prepare learners to cope with
the communicative demands of real life situations (Ismail 2010). According to Kartawijaya
(2018), writing is not a natural skill because one could not acquire this ability automatically and
easily. To acquire it, the students should get sufficient writing practices. These practices are
supposed to stimulate the student’s skill in writing and expressing thoughts in a good passage.

English language consists of four major skills namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Writing is often regarded as a critical skill as it includes many skills in order to fulfill the
requirement of the task. According to Lim, Melor & Mohamed Amin (2017) writing has been
widely regarded as a critically essential skill in the teaching and learning of English as a Second
Language (ESL) as it is a comprehensive skill that helps strengthen vocabulary, grammar,
thinking, planning, editing, revising, and other elements. Saed & Al-Omari provided a detailed
explanation by saying that writing skill is interconnected and helps to improve other skills such
as listening, speaking and reading. In the year 2013, Maghsoudi and Haririan stated that writing
stimulates thinking, compel students to concentrate and organize their ideas, and cultivate their
abilities to summarize, analyze, and criticize. It also gives emphasis to constant learning in,
thinking in, and doing reflection in the English language. Furthermore in a multilingual country
like Malaysia where the interactions between groups of speakers who are dominant in English
and those who are dominant in Malay or Chinese have resulted in wide-ranging changes in
Malaysian English. (Tan 2013).All these literatures have significantly agreed that writing is a
skill that comprises of many other skills. Lack of any of those skills might cause trouble in
students to acquire the skill well.

In order to improvise writing skill among ESL learners, writing strategy is regarded as one of the
important elements. There are many ways students use writing strategies in order to achieve their
purpose in completing the task. Pre-writing stage has been considered very significant as it
enhances writing performance in that learners can have discussions with the teacher and/or their
peers.(Bui and Le, 2018). Other than that, Kucer (2009) believes that writers obtain goals by
starting with a plan. He further acknowledges that the planning process of writing is extremely
important and greatly influences the impact on which language is and can be produced. This
planning, or prewriting, gives the writer more of an opportunity to consider and reconsider not
only the meaning of the message written but also the language used to convey that message.
Thus, planning can offer a great deal of assistance for student writers to complete and to convey
their thoughts in proper manner. For this reason, it is the learners’ responsibility to learn the
strategies in learning writing skill. In fact, language learners develop their own ways and use
various activities to learn consciously and unconsciously (Okada, Oxford, & Abo, 1996).

The purpose of this study was to find out the writing strategy used to create an outcome of the
writing skill, controlling for level of students proficiency in English for year 4 ESL learners at a
rural school in Batu Kikir, Negeri Sembilan. The objective of this study is to determine the
strategies used by Year 4 students in completing their writing task. More specifically, the
following research questions need to be addressed:

1. What is the most preferred basic writing strategy?

2. What is the most preferred essay writing strategy?

3.What is the most preferred after writing strategy?

LITERATURE REVIEW

The important part language learning strategies play in second language acquisition(SLA)
has been noted by many SLA researchers and also, many studies have been conducted to
explore them (Oxford, 1990 and Cohen, 2000). Over the last few decades, a gradual but
significant shift of attention has taken place within the field of education, resulting in less
emphasis on teachers and teaching to greater emphasis on learner and learning. At the
same time, a shift of attention has taken place in second language acquisition research
from the products of language learning to the processes through which learning takes place
( Oxford, 1990).

Over the last two decades, second language writing has evolved into a well-established field of
enquiry characterized by defined area of interest, distinct methods of inquiry and networks of
conferences, journals and professional organization for the dissemination of knowledge among
practitioners (Hyland 2016). L2 writing is deemed important and crucial aspect of overall
language learning process. Literacy is a crucial aspect of the overall language learning process
and writing is a necessary component. This actually applies to both first and second language
learning. Writing is a process as well as a product and for learning the process is important.
Reading and writing are excellent ways to teach both content and the grammatical aspects of the
language being learned but in a kind of incidental way that doesn't focus on the form to the
detriment of the content. This is because the literacy process often provides excellent context
and enables the focus on meaning-making while also providing grammatical practice (and
vocabulary practice) in the process of the meaning-making. Importantly, this also enables the L2
learner to be able to monitor the language output as suggested in Swain's Output Hypothesis
(1993). It stresses the role of output in second language language (SLA), maintaining that
practicing a language is important to allow learners to observe their own language production in
the target language and reflect on their requirements for further outputs. Writing is a cognitively
rich process that is both more prominent than speech and more enduringly overt so output is
much more easily addressed.

The challenges of academic writing are another concern that has been noticeably considered by
scholars. Academic writing is not an easy skill to be achieved especially in a second language
(Maznun, Monsefi & Nimehchisalem 2016). There are many researches that focused solely on
finding out the challenges that students actually face when completing writing task in second
language setting. According to Haider (2012) and Hyland (2003) problems that students face can
be classified into a few categories. The four major categories are linguistics, psychological,
cognitive and pedagogical categories. This is also supported by a recent study by Sidman &
Karathanos (2015) and Dar & Khan (2015), they concluded that students face difficulties in the
psychological, cognitive, rhetorical and linguistics aspects of the English language while
converting ideas into text. The common problems identified between these researches are the
linguistic aspects of writing. This problem could exist due to the interference of the first
language and the lack of proper strategy use in constructing sentences or planning the write up
before presenting it in written form. Thus, it is important for us to know students preffered
strategy to help improve their writing skill.

As stated in a study conducted by Rico (2014), an incoherent text fails to communicate ideas
which causes lack of confidence in learners even if they have mastered syntactic, lexical and
grammatical command over text composition. When a learner is given a topic without any
guidance or planning process he might face difficulties in creating a good piece of write up.
Generating ideas about their topics could be also a barrier that hinders students to move on in
their writing (Al Murshidi 2014). L2 learners are often overwhelmed when asked to complete a
writing task. Even at the beginning, some learners will have difficulty getting started (Al-
Gharabally 2015). These are associated with the motivation of learners who are generally unclear
about the purpose and significance of their text in their L2 learning (Fareed, Ashraf & Bilal
2016). In a study conducted by Mustafa (2017) it is evident that students choose the wrong form
of words. For instance, they may use a verb instead of a noun depending on the word order in the
sentence. In addition, they mix the word order by starting a sentence with a verb followed by the
subject. Mixed tenses are the most popular problem that students frequently encounter in writing
essays. These are some of the reasons why students face difficulties in L2 writing task which
turn out to create an incoherent writing. One of which is, not using the proper strategy in
completing the task or using unsuitable strategy only because they are asked to do so.

IMPORTANCE OF WRITING STRATEGY

One of the major writing strategies is the pre writing strategy which involves planning,
reviewing and writing. To decide how writing strategies can benefit students, various research
articles on the subject were looked at. Based on the findings of numerous research, it can be said
that pre writing strategies used have positive effects on student writing (Towell and Matanzo
2010; Lorenz et al, 2009; Nursazwani, Wardatul and Asmaa 2018). Pre-writing also proves to be
one effective technique in overcoming language problems such as lack of vocabulary. In a study
conducted by Nursazwani, Wardatul and Asmaa (2018) entitled Exploring The Vaw Method Of
Writing Among Esl Primary Pupils: Conceptual Paper, it is proved that the problem of writing
among these rural young learners is cause by the lack of vocabulary acquisition where they don’t
have choices of words in expressing their ideas in writing. Therefore, the researchers propose
method with a writing module focusing on vocabulary enhancement as pre-writing strategy in
improving the writing skills among these learners. The result of this research has shown that it
helps in improving their vocabulary enhancement. Vocabulary is considered as important aspects
of writing skill. According to them, the best ways to expand vocabulary is not only by referring
to dictionary but understanding usage of words according to the sentences. This shows that pre-
writing strategy has the tendency to improve student’s vocabulary skill.

METHODOLOGY

This study was conducted in a rural primary school in Batu Kikir Malaysia. Since the school has
100% Malay students, their first language is Bahasa Malaysia. The use of English is very much
limited and usually used only during English lesson for learning purposes. This arises the
concern to constantly study the types of strategies usually implied to learn writing skill
particularly. The participants were chosen using purposive sampling method. 31 year 5 students
and 22 year 4 students were selected as participants of this study. The participants are of
intermediate proficiency level and are able to communicate in simple English. All the
participants come from a background where Bahasa Melayu is their preferred spoken language at
home. The sampling method selected is in accordance to Krejcie and Morgan (1970) with
population on N=61 and the suggested sampling size based on the author is S=53. The total
population was chosen based on intermediate language proficiency students from primary 4 and
primary 5. Simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents of this survey.

This study employed quantitative descriptive research with a survey method. The data was
collected using a questionnaire. The instrument used in this study was the Language Strategy
Use Questionnaire adapted from Language Strategy Use Inventory by Cohen, Oxford, and Chi
(2002).. It was divided into 4 sections. Section A consists of respondents’ demographic profiles
which includes gender and primary. Section B includes 4 items focusing on respondents’
strategies for basic writing. Section C has 4 items find out strategies to write an essay. Section D
consists of 2 items to find out the strategies used after writing a draft for essay.

FINDINGS

The descriptive statistics was run to find the percentage for gender and primary to ensure the
balance between male and female student to avoid bias in data collection. Followed by the mean
and percentage of strategy use in the three LLS groupings mentioned, the results show that
strategies use by participants in this study from the least to the most in each category.

Demographic profiles of respondents

Table I : Number of respondents according to gender.

Gender N Percentage (%)

Male 20 37.7
Female 33 62.3
Total 53 100

The demographic analysis emphasized on three key variables which are gender, primary and
duration of social media use. Table I shows the gender distribution among the respondents. 37%
of the respondents are male and 62.3% are female. The difference in sampling is due to the
percentage of female student population in intermediate proficiency level is higher than the
percentage of male students.

Table II: Primary

Primary Frequency Percentage (%)
4 22 41.5
5 31 58.5
Total 53 100
 The respondents are selected from year 4(10 years old) and year 5(11 years old). There were
22 respondents from year 4 and 31 respondents from year 5. The respondents were all of
intermediate language proficiency level.

Table III: Basic writing Strategies

Ite Strategies Used Freduency / percentage(%) Mean

m
SD D A SA
B1 Practice writing the 5 6 26 16 3.000
new words in the (9.4) (11.3) (49.1) (30.2)
target language.
B2 Plan out in advance 4 3 20 26 3.2830
how to write (7.5) (5.7) (37.7) (49.1)
academic papers,
monitor how my
writing is going, and
check to see how well
my writing reflects
what I want to say.
B3 Try writing different 8 9 17 19 2.6981
kinds of texts in the (22.6) (18.9) (32.1) (35.8)
target language (e.g.,
personal notes,
messages, letters, and
course papers).
B4 Take class notes in 13 14 14 12 2.4717
the target language as (24.5) (26.4) (26.4) (22.6)
much as I can.

Table III shows the findings on the strategies students prefer using during basic writing. The
strategy with the highest mean score, M=3.28 is to plan out in advance how to write academic
papers, monitor how their writing is going, and check to see how well the writing reflects what
they want to say. This involves three processes namely the planning, writing and reviewing
which is similar to pre writing strategy as discussed before. This is followed by the second
strategy with M=3.00, to practice writing new words in the target language. The least preferred
strategy M=2.4717, is taking notes in class. Thus, as far as basic writing is considered, the
respondents prefer planning their writing and reviewing.

Table IV : Strategies used for essay writing

Ite Strategies Used Freduency / percentage(%) Mean
m
SD D A SA
C1 Find a different way 14 7 16 16 3.000
to express the idea (26.4) (13.2) (30.2) (30.2)
when I don’t know
the correct expression
(e.g., use a synonym
or describe the idea).
C2 Review what I have 5 9 24 15 3.9245
already written before
(9.4) (17.0) (45.3) (28.3)
continuing to write
more.
C3 Wait to edit my 17 11 15 10 2.3396
writing until all my (32.1) (20.8) (28.3) (18.9)
ideas are down on
paper.
C4 Use reference 19 13 15 6 2.1509
materials such as a (35.8) (24.5) (28.3) (18.9)
glossary, a dictionary,
or a thesaurus to help
find or verify words
in the target
language.

As it can be seen on table IV, the questionnaire focuses on strategies used for essay writing. The
most agreed upon strategy with M=3.93, 45.3% of respondents agree to review what they have
already written before continuing to write more and M= 3.00 prefers finding a different way to
express the idea when they do not know the correct expression. The least preferred strategy is
using reference material such as dictionary to help understand words. 35.8% strongly disagreed
that they would use a dictionary to find meaning of the words using a dictionary.

Table V: Strategies used for after writing purposes

Ite Strategies Used Freduency / percentage(%) Mean

m
SD D A SA
D1 Revise my writing 10 8 17 18 2.6453
once or twice to (18.9) (15.1) (32.1) (33.9)
improve the language
and content.
D2 Try to get feedback 14 4 17 18 2.7358
from others, (26.4) (7.5) (32.1) (34.0)
especially friends.

The last 2 items of the questionnaire consists of two items that focuses on strategies used for
after writing purposes. With just a small difference in mean score, respondents agreed upon
getting feedback from others, especially friends. This result is closely linked to item C4 where
respondents do not prefer looking through dictionaries to find the meaning. Thus, they can refer
to the more knowledgeable other to further understand or to clear their doubts. In item C2 most
respondents preferred to review the writing. After looking at the results on Table V, it can be
assumed that the review could be peer review.

DISCUSSION

The results of this study indicated that the most preferred basic writing strategy is plan out in
advance how to write academic papers, monitor how their writing is going, and check to see how
well the writing reflects what they want to say. This shows that respondents prefer strategy that
helps in organizing ideas. This indicates that students from SK Batu Kikir prefer using
metacognitive strategies. Students using metacognitive strategies in their English studies usually
plan, arrange, and evaluate their learning. In a study conducted by Kartawijaya (2018) outline
technique used as pre writing strategy improved students’ writing skill. The students were easier
to design their writing, organized idea and constructed their sentence into a good paragraph. This
is also agreed by Pratasari and Pratiwi (2018) who stated in their study that it could be concluded
that mind mapping could be implemented to enhance students‟ performance in writing procedure
text and solve the problem to generate and organize their ideas before writing. This study also
proves that, pre writing strategy used also brought positive attitude in teaching and learning.
These studies further adds to the reason on why this method is preferred by most respondents

What is the most preferred essay writing strategy?

Review what is already written before continuing to write more. According to Flower & Hayes,
there are three dimensions involved in the process of writing, the task environment, long term
memory and the writing process. The task environment stage is about the problem that needs to
be solved such as written assignment and the text produced. During the writing process the
writer’s long term memory is important as they will retrieve information and activate hints from
his long term memory to be integrated into the topic. Although correct information about a
specific topic can be retrieved, sometimes it cannot be organized in a way the reader can
understand (McCurdy, Schmitz, & Albertson 2010) so the final stage which is writing process
involves planning, translating and reviewing. During the planning stage is where the strategies
are implemented and followed by transferring opinions planned into written language, with focus
to syntax, grammar and spelling. The last stage is when the writer reviews the written work by
correcting errors in the product. However, constant monitoring during the writing process serves
to determine the transitions from one phase to another (Flower & Hayes 1981).

What is the most preferred after writing strategy?

Finally, the most preferred post writing strategy is try to get feedback from others, especially
friends. This is in line with the process approach used in writing. Kroll (2001) defines process
approach as follows:

The “process approach” serves today as an umbrella term for many types of writing courses ….
What the term captures is the fact that student writers engage in their writing tasks through a
cyclical approach rather than a single-shot approach. They are not expected to produce and
submit complete and polished responses to their writing assignments without going through
stages of drafting and receiving feedback on their drafts, be it from peers and/or from the teacher,
followed by revision of their evolving texts. (pp. 220-221).

Thus, the project approach also focuses on getting feedback rather than just completing the work
individually.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

The findings of this study provide a better understanding of strategy use among Iranian
successful and unsuccessful EFL students. Iranian successful EFL university students
seemed to be aware of the importance of learning English and were applying some kind
of measures to facilitate their own learning.They reported using a wider range of learning
strategies and different from those often preferred by their unsuccessful peers. The former often
used metacognitive strategies while the latter tended to use surface level cognitive strategies. The
successful students used overall strategies significantly more frequently than the
unsuccessful students. The study also found that the Iranian EFL students used affective
strategies least frequently. Therefore, Iranian language teachers should try to exert an influence
over the emotional atmosphere of the classroom. Moreover, the results of this study
suggest a number of useful implications and can be beneficial for Iranian language
teachers in terms of raising their awareness on narrowing the gap between the students' language
learning strategies and their teaching methodologies preferences. First, all EFL students
should be informed of available strategies and the important role of language learning
strategies in the learning of English. Second, the focus of strategy instruction should be
on unsuccessful students, giving them more opportunities to practice strategies and
encouraging them to regularly evaluate their progress. Third, in view of the lack of
communication in English in the Iranian context, an environment where students can have
more opportunities to use English and simultaneously practice learning strategies should
be provided. Fourth, curriculum developers should modify the language curriculum to
include activities that involve the students in the actual use of the target language. Fifth,
language teachers should detect the language learning strategies of their students and help them
compensate the missing areas in their strategy preference and use.

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