任務導向學習法與輸入處理教學法對青少年外語學習者英語寫作能力提升之效能

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩. 士. 論. 文. Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 任務導向學習法與輸入處理教學法對青少年外語學習者英語寫作能力提升之效能. Effect of Task-based Instruction and Processing Instruction on Young EFL Learners’ Writing Ability. 指導教授：劉. 宇. 挺. Advisor: Dr. Yeu-Ting Liu 研究生：翁. 嘉. 貝. 中華民國一百零三年六月 June, 2014.

(2) 摘要本研究目的在探討三種不同寫作教學法：輸入處理教學法(PI)、任務導向學習法 (TBI)、結合上述兩個教學法(the eclectic instruction)對於(1)青少年外語學習者英語寫作能力提升之效能；(2) 三者教學效能之比較；(3) 三個教學法是否對於不同的寫作面向有不同程度的助益。本研究的實驗參與者為 69 位來自於新北市一所私立女子中學的七年級學生。在完成寫作測驗前測後，實驗參與者分別在不同的寫作教學組內接受主題相同、為期八週的寫作教學。八週後，實驗參與者填寫了一份教學反應與自評問卷並接受寫作測驗後測。實驗參與者的英文作文是根據大學學測英文作文的評分規準來批改並以重複量數雙因子變異數分析及事後分析來統計、分析研究結果。此研究發現(1) 此三種寫作教學法皆能提升青少年外語學習者的英語寫作能力。(2) 任務導向學習法與兩者結合的教學法在寫作的教學效能上優於輸入處理教學法。(3) 任務導向學習法與兩者結合的教學法對於寫作流暢度的助益優於輸入處理教學法。根據此研究的發現所提出的建議如下：國中英語教師可考慮將寫作教學與文法教學結合，如此不但可給予學習者更有意義的練習，也可銜接高中的作文教學。. 關鍵字：輸入處理教學法、任務導向學習法、寫作教學、國民中學、差異化教學. i.

(3) Abstract The study aims to examines three writing instructions: Processing instruction (PI), Task-Based instruction (TBI), and the combination of both (the eclectic instruction) to see (1) their effects on improving EFL young learner’s writing ability (2) the relative contribution of the three, and (3) their benefits to specific writing aspects. The participants of the present study are 69 seven-grade students from a private girls’ high school in New Taipei City who were assigned to three groups. After the writing pretest, the participants received eight-week writing instruction on the same topics in three writing instruction groups. After the instruction, the participants took a post-intervention questionnaire and the posttest. The scoring rubrics of GSAT and syntactical complexity were employed to rate and analyzed the participants’ writing products. Afterwards, two-way repeated measure ANOVA followed by Tukey post-hoc analysis was used to presents the results of the study. The finding showed that (1) all the three writing instructions could improve EFL young learner’s writing ability. (2) Task-based instruction and the eclectic instruction would be more effective than processing instruction in improving writing ability. (3) Task-based instruction and the eclectic instruction could benefit learners’ writing ability in fluency better than processing instruction. Based on the findings, the present study suggests that junior high English teachers could combine writing instruction into grammar instruction for learners’ to get meaningful practices and better preparation for high school composition instruction.. ii.

(4) Key words: processing instruction, task-based instruction, writing instruction, junior high school, differentiate instruction. iii.

(5) Acknowledges I am very grateful to many people that have contributed directly or indirectly to the thesis. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Yeu-ting Liu, for his guidance, patience, and encouragement. He taught me not only about how to conduct a research but how to construct a short and sweet thesis. He always understood my disappointments, encouraged me not to give up, and eased my anxiety toward the unknown situations. I would also like to thank Principle Rui-huang Lai, Director of Academic Affairs Li-chuan Yang, and my classmate as well as colleague, Janet Chou, for their understanding, advices, and care before and during the writing instruction. Many thanks are also owed to all the participants at GLGHS who learned with their interest and made their efforts which made the groundwork for the thesis possible. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the support of my younger sister, mother-in-law, and my husband for not only accompanying me while I was taking courses and working on the thesis but also discussing, commenting, and assisting me throughout the whole process of thesis writing. Finally, I want to show my gratitude to those who influence may not be so evident but who have provided emotional foundation without which this thesis would have never been possible: my grandparents, my parents, and my younger brother.. iv.

(6) Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 5 1.1 Background and Motivation .................................................................................. 5 1.2 The Rationale of the Study ........................................................................................ 8 1.3 The Scope of the Study............................................................................................... 9 1.4 Significance of the Study.......................................................................................... 10 1.5 Organization of the Study........................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 12 2.1 Overviews of PI and TBI ......................................................................................... 13 2.1.1 The theoretical frameworks and procedures of PI and TBI ..................... 13 2.1.2 The similarities and differences of PI and TBI ........................................... 16 2.2 The Effects of PI and TBI ........................................................................................ 20 2.2.1 Studies about PI and TBI.............................................................................. 20 2.2.2 Relative contributions of the three instructions ......................................... 26 2.3 The Measurement of Writing Ability ..................................................................... 27 2.3.1 The definitions of accuracy, fluency, and complexity................................. 27 2.3.2 The ways of measuring accuracy, fluency, and complexity ....................... 29 2.4 Summary ................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 34 3.1 Setting and Participants........................................................................................... 34 3.2 Research Design ........................................................................................................ 35 3.3 Procedures ................................................................................................................. 36 3.4 Instruments ............................................................................................................... 38 3.4.1 Background questionnaire............................................................................ 38 3.4.2 Pretest ............................................................................................................. 38 3.4.3 Interventions .................................................................................................. 38 3.4.4 Feedback questionnaire ................................................................................ 41 3.4.5 Posttest............................................................................................................ 41 3.5 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 41 3.5.1 Scoring policy................................................................................................. 42 3.5.2 Statistical analysis.......................................................................................... 43 3.5.3 Qualitative analysis ....................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS ............................................................................................ 48 4.1 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................................ 48 4.2 The Statistical Results of Research Questions 1 and 2 .......................................... 50 4.3 The Statistical Results of Research Question 3 ...................................................... 53 4.4 The Results of Qualitative Data .............................................................................. 56 1.

(7) CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION ....................................................................................... 61. 5.1 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 61 5.2 Pedagogical Implication ........................................................................................... 65 5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for the Future Studies ............................................. 68 5.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 69 References ............................................................................................................................... 71 Appendix 1 Consent form of the study ................................................................................. 75 Appendix 2 Background information questionnaire .......................................................... 76 Appendix 2-1 Background information questionnaire ....................................................... 77 Appendix 3 Pretest sheet ........................................................................................................ 78 Appendix 3-1 Pretest sheet .................................................................................................... 79 Appendix 4 Feedback questionnaire .................................................................................... 80 Appendix 4-1 Feedback questionnaire ................................................................................. 81 Appendix 5 Posttest sheet ...................................................................................................... 82 Appendix 5-1 Pretest sheet .................................................................................................... 83 Appendix 6 Plan for eight-week instruction ........................................................................ 84 Appendix 7 The scoring rubric of General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) ..................... 88. 2.

(8) List of Figures FIGURE 1. THE INSTRUCTIONAL STYLE COMPARISON OF PI AND TBI.............................................. 19. FIGURE 2. THE PRETEST AND POSTTEST COMPARISON OF THE THREE TREATMENTS ................ 51. FIGURE 3. THE RELATIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE THREE TREATMENTS........................................ 53. FIGURE 4. THE COMPARISON OF POSTTEST SUB-SCORES IN THE THREE TREATMENTS ............. 56. 3.

(9) List of Tables TABLE 1. THE PROCEDURES OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN..................................................................... 36. TABLE 2. THE PROCEDURES OF THE STUDY............................................................................................ 37. TABLE 3. THE TOPICS OF THE INTERVENTION ........................................................................................ 40. TABLE 4. THE DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR THE PARTICIPANTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE .... 49. TABLE 5. THE RESULTS OF TWO-WAY ANOVA FOR THE PARTICIPANTS’ WRITING. PERFORMANCE (TOTAL SCORE) .......................................................................................................... 50 TABLE 6. POST HOS COMPARISONS FOR THE TREATMENTS IN THE POSTTEST.............................. 52. TABLE 7. THE RESULTS OF TWO-WAY ANOVA FOR THE PARTICIPANTS’ SUB-SCORES IN THE. POSTTEST .................................................................................................................................................. 54 TABLE 8. POST HOC COMPARISONS FOR THE TREATMENTS IN THE FLUENCY SUB-SCORES OF. THE POSTTEST ......................................................................................................................................... 55 TABLE 9. PARTICIPANTS’ OPINIONS ABOUT THE EIGHT-WEEK WRITING INSTRUCTION.............. 57. TABLE 10. THE APSECTS IMPROVED MOST FROM PARTICIPANTS’ SELF-EVALUATION ................ 58. TABLE 11. THE ASPECTS WISHED TO IMPROVE IN THE FUTURE FROM PARTICIPANTS’. SELF-EVALUATION …………………………………………………………………………………59. 4.

(10) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background and Motivation Writing is one of the ways for people to express meanings and ideas. Besides, writing. enables language learners to test what they have learned and also notices what they have not learned and thus helps them be aware of the gap between their inter-language and the target language. During the process, learners could further develop their language system. For example, Ellis (2003) emphasized the need of making output by stating that “both researchers and teachers acknowledge the need to elicit samples of language use that are representative of how learners performed when they are not attending to accuracy….how learners structure and restructure their inter-languages overtime” (p.1). Through modifying writing output, language learners could gradually learn how to communicate fluently and effectively in the target language. However, before writing fluently in English, learners have a lot to learn. They have to be used to the left to right direction, relating letters to sounds, punctuations, and forms and functions of the language. They may also encounter different kinds of difficulties from spelling, word choice, and grammar to styles in the writing process. Thus, teachers need to teach different aspects of written language through proper and authentic teaching activities (Cook, 2005). When it comes to English writing instruction in junior high school in Taiwan, we would probably think about grammar instruction, mechanic drills, meaningful drills and so 5.

(11) on, instead of writing instruction itself. Actually, many junior high school English teachers pay most of their attention to grammar instruction because of the negative wash-back of Basic Competence Test (BCT). The English test in BCT consists of multiple choice test items of vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension so teacher would pay little attention to English writing. From another perspective, there are few English writing studies focusing on junior high students in Taiwan. Among them, some focused on sentence level writing (Farley, 2001; VanPatten & Sanz, 1995) while others focused on the changes of junior high students’ attitudes and motivation toward English writing after certain kind of instruction (Cadierno, 1995; Chi, 2011; Lin, 2010; Su, 2012). Rarely are there studies focusing on junior high students’ development in writing ability and rarely do these studies analyze junior high students’ writing product in systematic method such as accuracy, fluency, and complexity. This suggests that English teachers of junior high should not focus only on teaching students grammar but also on how to further develop students’ writing ability. Processing instruction (PI) is an effective way for teachers to redirect learners’ attention to the language elements that they used to overlook or misunderstand before. Learners may learn a new language by using the strategies they perceive or produce their native language. However, the old strategies for learning the native language may not be suitable for the new language so they would have difficulties in the learning process.. 6.

(12) Learners would be able to successfully comprehend and acquire a language with explicit explanation of the language knowledge, the inappropriate strategy, the new strategy, and appropriate practices. Broadly speaking, processing instruction mainly focuses on language forms and emphasizes more on accuracy which could be used to help learners to comprehend, speak, and write correctly. Task-based instruction (TBI) is a useful way for teachers to help student develop communicative competence especially in the EFL settings where few naïve input is available (Ellis, 2003). By doing real-life tasks, learners can practice using the target language in a meaningful and communicative way. Generally speaking, task-based instruction focuses primarily on meaning and emphasizes more on fluency than accuracy which provide an optimal context for learners to develop their second language skills and confidence in foreign countries. As noted above, task-based instruction and processing instruction are pedagogies of two very different approaches. PI emphasizes on effective ways to perceive language and focuses on language form so it is one of the bottom-up approaches which focus on language elements first. On the other hand, TBI encourages communication and focuses on meanings so it belongs to top-down approach which looks at the big picture of language first. When it comes to teaching EFL learners to write composition at the beginning stage, teachers concern both correctness and richness. When teaching beginning-level writers, do the two. 7.

(13) instructions make differences? Besides, will the combination of the two instructions helps learners write better? These are interesting questions for English teachers to discuss.. 1.2. The Rationale of the Study The rationale of the study could be stated from both pedagogical and research. perspectives. Form pedagogical perspective, Tanaka (2001) suggested that English writing should not be regarded merely as grammar teaching. However, most English teachers in junior high schools in Taiwan tend to teach students grammar, give them mainly mechanical drills, and focus only on sentence level writing. This kind of writing instruction makes students unable to apply what they have learned to actual writing activities. Moreover, rote memorization also leads students to be unable to relate the vocabulary they have learned to their writing. The inability makes many students feel anxious when they are asked to write short passages because they do not know how to start and what to write. To enhance junior high school students’ writing ability in both fluency and accuracy, combining PI and TBI seems to be a potential way for both teachers and students to go one more step forward. From the research perspective, both PI and TBI allow researchers to further develop in writing instruction. For PI, there are few studies of PI in Taiwan. Among these studies, most of them used PI to teach learners specific grammar features such as subjunctive, superlative,. 8.

(14) and so on (Chen, 2012; Xu, 2001). Existing researches of PI have ignored the possibility of improving learners’ writing ability. Hence, in order to help fill this gap, this study will investigate the probable application of PI in writing instruction. For TBI, most of the previous studies of TBI focused mainly on speaking, reading, vocabulary learning, and motivation (Hsieh, 2012; Wang, 2010; Wu, 2010; Yeh, 2009). Though there has been an increasing interest in employing TBI in writing instruction (Lee, 2006), few publications were found in Taiwan. Thus, researching application and effects of PI, TBI in writing instruction and the possibility of combining them are also reasons for carrying out the study.. 1.3. The Scope of the Study The purpose of the study is to explore a better and more complete way of writing. instruction through an analysis of learners’ writing products. The specific aims in this study are (a) to identify effective writing instructions by comparing different pedagogical instructions, (b) to examine particular aspects of writing ability that these effective writing instructions could provide, and (c) to determine an ideal instruction which could help improve beginner writers’ writing ability more completely than others. Based on the above scope, the research questions of the study are derived as following. (1) Which of the following pedagogical instructions effectively enhance young EFL learners’ writing ability? Task-based instruction, processing instruction, or the. 9.

(15) eclectic instruction? (2) What is the relative contribution of the above three instructional methods to the young EFL learners’ writing ability? (3) Does each of the three methods impose a differential effect on different aspects of young EFL learners’ writing ability?. 1.4. Significance of the Study The study is done with the hope that it may provide an alternative way of writing. instruction. Additionally, the empirical results of the study may serve as a basis for the study of PI and TBI in writing instruction. For the pedagogical domain, the findings of the study would offer English teachers some teaching implications in English writing instruction and also empower them to teach high school students English writing with more confidence.. 1.5. Organization of the Study The thesis is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, the study addressed the. background, motivation and purpose of the study, and also previous studies in this domain in Taiwan. In the second chapter, the overview, comparison, effects of processing instruction, task-based instruction, the rationale of combing the two instructions, and the relative contribution of the three instructions were discussed. The study also examined the methods. 10.

(16) of measuring learners’ writing. The hypotheses of the research questions were proposed at the ending of the second chapter. In the third chapter, the study illustrated information about the participants, the research design, the instruments, and procedures and methods of data analysis. In the fourth chapter, the results of the study were presented. In the fifth chapter, the major findings of the current study were summarized and discussed. Pedagogical implications, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future studies were also presented in the last chapter.. 11.

(17) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Processing instruction and task-based instruction are pedagogies from two different perspectives. Actually, the two instructions have similarities and differences in their nature and the complementary characteristics of the two are the potential of combining the two instructions into an eclectic instruction to improve learners’ writing ability. According to Skehan (1998), there are different aspects for learners to achieve when writing in the second language, fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Accuracy and fluency are more easily developed respectively through PI and TBI. However, neither PI nor TBI could cover all aspects of writing ability. Thus, combining the two instructions may benefit learners’ writing ability the most than using either of the instructions alone. In the first section of the chapter, overviews of processing instruction and task-based instruction will be reviewed first for their conceptual relevance to the proposed approach. In the second section, more specific effects of PI and TBI on writing ability, the potential of combination, and the relative contributions of the three will be reviewed and discussed. In the third section, the measurement of writing ability and the more ideal methods to adopt in the study will be illustrated and discussed. Based on the reviewed literatures, the hypothesis for each research question will be proposed at the end of this chapter.. 12.

(18) 2.1 Overviews of PI and TBI 2.1.1 The theoretical frameworks and procedures of PI and TBI Both processing instruction and task-based instruction are pedagogies applied extensively in second language teaching(Cheng, 2004; Ellis, 2003). PI is often applied in second language grammar instruction and TBI is often used to help learners communicate in second language. Since PI treats language form of production but TBI foster content of production, the different focuses of the combination of the two instructions may create an additive effect. Before proposing the potential of combining the two into an eclectic one, we need to get general pictures of each instruction to find out their own features. Thus, the theoretical frameworks and procedures of PI and TBI are summarized below: Processing instruction is one of the focus-on-form instructions originated from input processing. Input processing theory emphasizes on how language learners process input and connect form to meaning during the acquisition process. VanPatten (2004) proposed principles to explain why learners may have problems perceiving information and comprehend meanings. Besides, he also explained why learners have difficulties in acquiring certain grammatical forms. During their acquisition, learners do not always employ facilitating principles. When a principle is beneficial to learners’ acquisition, teachers could work with the optimal processing strategy. On the other hand, teachers need to work against non-optimal processing strategy which may lead to their misinterpretation. 13.

(19) and hinder their learning. Processing instruction is a pedagogy which guides learners to make correct form-meaning connections by applying optimal processing strategies. Optimal processing strategies help learners correctly decode/encode language forms and correctly interpret or make output. In fact, based on learners’ interpretation and output, teachers could first identify the inefficient/non-optimal strategies that learners employ. Then, according to Wong (2004), processing instruction has three procedures. First, learners would be given explicit explanation of the target structure. Second, learners would also be given explicit information (EI) about both the inefficient/non-optimal processing strategies that may lead to non-target forms or misinterpretation meanings of particular structure and the optimal ones. Third, learners would be given structured input (SI) activities to help learners get meaning from form through using the optimal processing strategies. For instance, learners may not process grammatical words “ed” so they do not recognize past tense. Thus, teachers may explain past tense first. Then, they could tell learners that ignoring grammatical words is a non-optimal processing strategy at EI stage. In SI section, the time phrase would not be shown in sentences so learners are pushed to make form-meaning connections by observing the verb tense. Derived from communicative language teaching, task-based instruction contains the core of CLT. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) aims to engage learners to use the. 14.

(20) target language functionally and appropriately. In this vein, task-based instruction develops learners’ language skills by providing them with meaningful and communicative pedagogical tasks. A task is essentially different from an exercise. According to Ellis (2003), an exercise is a form-focused teaching activity and emphasizes more on learners’ language performance. While doing an exercise, learners are simply learners. On the other hand, a task is a language-involved activity with a goal so learners focus on meaning and communicate to reach the goal when engaging in a task. While carrying out a task, learners are language users. According to Willis (1996), a task-cycle is composed of three phases, pre-task, during-task, and post-task. Pre-task is designed to motivate or prepare learners for the task. At the pre-task phase, teachers may motivate learners to participate the task or explain the purpose, the expected outcome of the task (Ellis, 2003). At during-task phase, teachers could design tasks which focus on specific language form for learners to engage in and communicate in the target language. At the post-task stage, teachers could achieve their pedagogical goals by reviewing learners’ errors or discussing communication strategies with students based on their reflection. For example, in a difference identification task, teachers may explain the goal of the task, provide learners a model, or give learners time for planning in the pre-task phrase. At the during-task stage, learners may ask each other questions to find out the differences between each other’s pictures and have either oral. 15.

(21) presentation or written products at the end of the stage. In post-task phrase, teachers may further work on the question forms or strategies of asking questions based on learners’ performance and eventually reach the language learning goals. 2.1.2 The similarities and differences of PI and TBI Based on the above overview, we could conclude some similarities between PI and TBI. First, both part of PI and TBI are focus-on-form instructions. Focus-on-form is a school of language teaching. In this kind of teaching, learners refine their language system through language-focused activities or tasks. During the activities or tasks, learners would pay attention on the target structure and understand the rules or usage of the target structure. PI decides, deals with language form proactively at the beginning of teaching stage and then make learners practice and use the target structure at the later stage. On the other hand, TBI have learners use the target structure at during-task stage first and treat learners’ errors reactively at the post-task phrase. Second, both PI and TBI keep meaning in focus. In PI, teachers have to construct sentences based on meaning for learners to have more resources to process grammatical and non-content words in their working memory. TBI encourages learners to use the target language to complete communicative task so meaning is kept as the priority in performing the task. Third, both PI and TBI are instructions with strictly structured teaching activities. Explicit explanation, explicit information (EI), and structured input (SI) in PI and pre-task,. 16.

(22) during-task, and post-task in TBI are teaching procedures with respective purposes and functions based on their theoretical framework. Besides the similarities, the differences between PI and TBI are the core reasons why we would like to combine them into an eclectic instruction in this study. The differences of the PI and TBI will be discussed as follows: Processing instruction and task-based instruction originate from different theoretical backgrounds. For PI, it derives from input processing (IP) but TBI derives from communicative language teaching (CLT). Owing to the different origins, PI and TBI develop different teaching activities, language focuses, and instructional styles. For teaching activities, processing instruction aims to alter learners’ inefficient/non-optimal processing strategies and help them to make correct form-meaning connections so PI emphasizes more on language forms than TBI does. As for language focus, receptive skills, listening and reading, are employed more often than productive ones, explicit explanation, explicit information (EI), and the early stage of structured input (SI) of PI. In contrast, teachers seek to foster learners’ second language proficiency by communicating in the target language so productive skills, speaking and writing, are often employed in tasks in TBI. For instructional style, the structured input (SI) activities in PI need to be designed from receptive practices to productive practices. Thus, we could say that PI starts from more controlled style and moves toward more open-ended style. On the other hand, in TBI, after. 17.

(23) the pre-task, during-task phases, language forms are focused at post-task stage. Thus, we could say that task-based instruction starts in a more open-ended style and ends in a more controlled one. The teaching procedures and examples of the two instructions were illustrated in Figure 1.. 18.

(24) Figure 1 PI Controlled. Explicit explanation. TBI Open-ended. Example: Teachers explain language knowledge of past tense. ↓. Pre-task Example: Teachers ask students to share their life on the weekend. ↓. Explicit information (EI). During-task. Example:. Example:. Teachers tell learners ignoring the grammatical word, ed, is non-optimal so they need to pay attention to it. ↓. Teachers ask students to writing a short essay to talk about one of the unforgettable experience he/she had. ↓. Structured input (SI). Post-task. Example: Activity A Listen to the following sentences and answer the. Example: Activity A Teachers invite some students to share their writing with the. events happen yesterday or today. 1. Amy went to the movies. 2. Betty takes bus to school. Activity B Read the short narration and list what happen yesterday and today. Cindy gets up too late because she went to bed at 11p.m.. class. Activity B Teachers instruct the past tense to students and give then some exercises to practice the grammar feature. Activity C Teachers ask students to read their writing again and revise it if it is necessary.. Activity C Work with your partners to describe what did you do yesterday and what do you do Open-ended today. Controlled The instructional style comparison of PI and TBI. 19.

(25) As has been discussed, though we could see PI and TBI come from two paradigms and are different in their nature, they are not exclusive to each other. Processing instruction could direct learners’ attention to form at the beginning and help them make correct form-meaning connection with more controlled and receptive practices (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993). Yet, some suspect its effect on productive skills, especially beyond the sentence level (VanPatten & Sanz, 1995). TBI could provide learners with motivation, goals, and opportunities to communicate in the target language (Dyer, 1996). Teachers could also direct learners’ attention to the target structure again and refine their language system in the post-task phase. In sum, it is their differences that create the potential to combine the two instructions and become the theoretical foundation of the eclectic approach to improve ESL learners’ writing ability in a more complete way.. 2.2 The Effects of PI and TBI 2.2.1 Studies about PI and TBI As has been discussed above, PI, TBI, and the eclectic instruction could be used to improve learners’ writing ability. Based on the studies of PI and TBI, the effects of each instruction would be discussed first and then which aspects of learners’ writing ability would be improved by adopting each of the three instructions would also be analyzed. VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) intended to compare the effects of traditional. 20.

(26) instruction (TI) and processing instruction (PI) on learners’ acquisition of Spanish objective pronouns. The participants were divided into three groups, TI group, PI group, and control group. The TI group received explicit explanation on the target item and was given practices from mechanical drills, meaningful drills to open-ended practices. The PI group also received explicit explanation on the target item and was given practices using the processing strategies to process input data. The control group received no explicit explanation on the target item. After the intervention, the participants were given sentence-level interpretation task and sentence-level production task in both the pretest and posttest. The results showed that PI group had significant difference than TI group in the interpretation task and had equal variance as TI group in the production task. The reason for the equal development in the production task may be due to the fact that the participants of PI group had learned how to perceive and process input in processing instruction and this could also benefit their performance in the production task. For the TI group, VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) provided a possible explanation that participants of the TI group might have only learned how to perform the task during the drills and output practices but acquired the new language structure. They also proposed a conserved statement which is the results might be different in spontaneous circumstances. There were other replicated studies on different target structures but they remained on sentence-level and had the same results as the previous study which is PI keeps significant. 21.

(27) difference in interpretation tasks and has equal development as TI in the production tasks (Benati, 2005; Cadierno, 1995; Farley, 2001; VanPatten & Sanz, 1995). Except for the above replicated studies on sentence-level, Cheng (2004) conducted a study on production task of discourse-level. The study aimed to know learners’ acquisition in Spanish copular verb, ser and estar. It is a more complex structure for learners to acquire and the researcher would like to examine the generalibility of PI effects to a more complex target item and discourse-level production task. The research design was the same as the previous study except for the discourse-level production task in the posttests. For the discourse-level production task, the researchers provided four pictures for the participants to describe the pictures in the form of a narrated story. Overall, the results were consistent with the previous study. PI group showed more steady performance in the posttests than TI group in the discourse-level production task. TI group’s performance dropped in the second posttest. Cheng (2004) suggested participants processed input into intake and this helped them develop their language system. He also pointed out the limit of this study. Vocabulary was provided in the discourse-level production task. The results might be different if participants did it without the assistance in vocabulary. Most processing instruction studies focused on college-level students and mostly on Spanish and Italian second language learners. Instead, Benati (2005) conducted a study on the acquisition of English past simple tense in secondary school. The participants were. 22.

(28) twelve, thirteen-year-old ESL learners in China and Greece. The participants in the two countries are divided into three groups, TI group, PI group, and meaning-based output instruction group (MOI). Meaning-based output instruction is one of the output-based instruction techniques. Instead of mechanical drills, communicative and interactive activities are often used in MOI. Participants of TI, PI, and MOI groups are given sentence-level interpretation task and sentence-level production task in pretest and posttest. The results showed that PI group had more significant difference from TI and MOI groups in the interpretation task. The three instructions had equal improvement in production task. Benati (2005) thus suggested that learners could not have good performance in production without having good input first. However, the number of participants in each sub-group was less than 15 people and this might not be convincing enough when carrying out the statistical analysis. Based on the above review, processing instruction focuses on learners’ input processing strategies and thus benefits learners’ comprehension more than production. In fact, VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) also agree that communicative activities facilitate learners’ language acquisition. However, the positive effects could be achieved under the appropriate situation. That is, output activities have to be followed by instruction that focuses on input so that it could serve as the knowledge base for production. VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) also suggested that “it is important for instructors to focus on output. 23.

(29) activities that encourage learners to be accurate while also attending to meaning (p. 237).” Thus, we could infer that PI may help improve learners’ writing ability mainly in accuracy. What the above discussion tells us is we could teach learners with PI at the earlier stage of writing instruction and with TBI at the later stage in the eclectic approach because learners need language knowledge to process and produce language correctly. The recommended procedure for the eclectic instruction is also consistent with the classroom ecology. According to (Tanaka, 2001), teachers often begin their teaching from lecture on a target structure, followed by more controlled practices, and then move to more open-ended activities or tasks. As for task-based instruction, it is often used to teach intermediate students at college level (Arslanyilmaz, 2012; N. A. Brown, Bown, & Eggett, 2009; Rad & Jafari, 2013). However, Rad and Jafari (2013) also used TBI to improve pre-intermediate EFL learners’ reading and writing ability. Different tasks such as sorting, comparing, and problem solving were assigned to the participants to develop their reading and writing ability. The ability of problem solving and expressing ideas with written language are reported by the participants in feedback forms, learning journals, and interview. Despite these positive responses, it is a pity that the researchers did not provide quantitative evidence to further support learners’ improvement in reading and writing ability. Most TBI studies in writing supported that TBI could improve learners’ writing ability. 24.

(30) in fluency (Arslanyilmaz, 2012; Arslanyilmaz & Pedersen, 2010; N. A. Brown et al., 2009; Li, 2000; Rad & Jafari, 2013; Rezazadeh, Tavakoli, & Rasekh, 2011) but different task types may have different effects on learners’ writing ability. Foster and Skehan (1996) conducted a study to find out the relationship between task types and the quality of learners’ oral language production. In the study, there were two task types, structured and unstructured. Structured tasks asked for lower cognitive demand but unstructured tasks asked for higher cognitive demand. The results showed that the participants of structured-task group spoke more fluently and accurately but the participants from unstructured group spoke with more complex language than structured-task group. Foster and Skehan (1996) proposed possible explanation for the results; learners have only limited resources so they could only pay attention to one or two aspect when making output. Rezazadeh et al. (2011) also conducted a similar study in written production. They designed two types of writing tasks, instructional tasks and argumentative tasks. Instructional tasks were more structured and low demanding and argumentative tasks were unstructured and high demanding. The results were similar to those of Foster and Skehan (1996). The participants of instructional-task group wrote more fluently and the participants of argumentative–task group showed higher complexity in their writing. The reasons may be that instructional tasks are cognitively and linguistically familiar to learners so they could achieve higher level in fluency and accuracy. On the other hand, learners of. 25.

(31) argumentative-task group need to do reasoning and organize information so they would use more complex vocabulary and structures in their writing. In fact, Benati (2005) also suggested that logic and reasoning training would improve learners’ fluency and complexity. Based on the above review, we could conclude that TBI could benefit learners’ writing ability in fluency for sure. TBI may also improve learners’ writing ability in complexity through unstructured or argumentative task design. Moreover, what the above review also tells us is that we could not anticipate learners to acquire and pay attention to different aspects of writing through just one writing instruction because of learners’ limited resources. Because PI improve learners’ writing ability mainly in accuracy and TBI develop learners’ writing ability in fluency and perhaps complexity, this complementary distribution allows us to assume that the eclectic instruction might be a more practical way to improve learners’ writing ability. The eclectic instruction combining with PI and TBI allow learners to focus on different aspects of writing at earlier and latter stages of instruction. Thus, it could benefit learners’ writing ability in fluency, accuracy, and complexity. 2.2.2 Relative contributions of the three instructions From the above-mentioned discussion, we suppose that PI, TBI, and the eclectic instruction could improve learners’ writing ability in different aspects. Then, it is interesting to consider the relative contribution of the three instructions. According to the transfer. 26.

(32) appropriate processing theory, learners’ acquired knowledge will be retained or processed easily and better when they are under related knowledge frameworks or skill settings (Morris, Bransford, & Franks, 1977). That is, learners would learn better under similar skill settings than different ones. Based on the previous discussion, processing instruction focuses more on learners’ meta-linguistic knowledge and receptive skills but task-based instruction is an instruction focusing more on productive skills. Because writing is also a productive skill, task-based instruction would be a better choice in developing learners’ writing ability than processing instruction. However, the eclectic instruction would be an even better choice among the three in developing learners’ writing ability since it contains the advantages of PI and TBI and complement the disadvantages of the two instructions.. 2.3 The Measurement of Writing Ability 2.3.1 The definitions of accuracy, fluency, and complexity As noted previously, the research aims to improve second language learners’ writing ability by adopting PI, TBI, and the eclectic instruction. In order to examine the effectiveness of the three instructions, we need to measure learners’ progress in writing ability. Since language development is changes of one’s language system and could only be inferred from learners’ language examples, it is necessary for us to define the ways to describe learners’ writing ability first. According to Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, and Kim. 27.

(33) (1998) and A. Housen and Kuiken (2009), complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have been used to measure and describe language learners’ progress in writing. The study generalized common definitions of CAF from different studies. Accuracy is defined as the ability to produce error-free written text (A. Housen & Kuiken, 2009). Fluency is often thought of as the speed to produce written language. However, it could also mean the ability to produce coherent written text (A. Housen & Kuiken, 2009; Latif, 2013). Complexity is the most ambiguous one of the three components. Complexity commonly involves the ability to use a range of vocabulary and structures in written text. Because it refers to learners’ willingness of taking risks to use both different structures and more difficult language, it could be sub-categorized into syntactical and lexical levels (Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998). After knowing the definitions of CAF, the study could again connect them with the core elements of PI and TBI and discuss in which aspects the two instructions could improve learners’ writing ability. Processing instruction focuses mainly on meta-linguistic knowledge processing. For example, Chi (2011) found that processing instruction can activate learners’ awareness and involve their processing mechanism so it could be an effective pedagogical instruction to treat learners’ minor errors in their writing. Thus, PI is assumed to benefit learners’ writing ability in accuracy. On the other hand, according to Brown (2007), “In task-based. 28.

(34) instruction, fluency may have taken on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use (p.241).” Thus, we suppose TBI would benefit learners’ writing ability more in fluency and complexity aspects. In sum, though both PI and TBI could help learners improve their writing ability, they benefit learners in different aspects of writing. Again, the complementary benefits of the two instructions give opportunity to the eclectic instruction. 2.3.2 The ways of measuring accuracy, fluency, and complexity In order to give complete descriptions of learners’ language development, Latif (2013) recommended researchers and teachers to use multiple measures to assess CAF. In this vein, CAF would be examined from both macro and micro perspectives in the study. For accuracy, researches need to first consider how to define errors because it would have an impact on the results of studies. Since grammatical and spelling accuracy are essential components in pre-intermediate ESL learners’ writing, learners’ progress would be judged in grammatical correctness from macro perspective and learners’ spelling, mechanics from micro perspective in the study. For fluency, Wolfe-Quintero et al. (1998) concluded that the production of learners’ writing would gradually increase with language development so the study would view content as an indicator from macro perspective. Besides, the organization/coherence of learners’ writing such as transitions would be considered as micro perspective in the study. For complexity, learners’ syntactical complexity would be observed. 29.

(35) from macro perspective for more skilled learners would take risks to use different or more complex structures in their writing. Learners’ lexical complexity would also be examined from micro perspective. According to Heaton (1990), there are three kinds of methods for measuring learners’ writing, the error count method, the impression method, and analytic method. For the error count method, raters just count up the numbers of errors in a writing product and give a score based on the number of errors. The method does not consider different error types which writers made; neither does it consider content and the purpose of writing, communication, and thus may not be an ideal option. For the impression method, raters do not actually read writing products but just give scores based on total impression of them so the method requires multiple raters to ensure its reliability. Due to its characteristics, it is often employed when raters need to mark a large number of writing products in a short time and thus could not serve pedagogical purposes. For the analytic method, teachers could identify the features they want to examine first. They can even assign different weight to different features. Then, they can rate learners’ writing product according to a set of predetermined rubrics. For example, the writing test in General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) focuses on five features, content, organization, grammar/structure, vocabulary/spelling, and mechanics when rating examinees’ writing products. The five features are individually assigned 5, 5, 4, 4, 2 points so the total score is. 30.

(36) 20 points. If an examinee got 5 in content, 4 in organization, 3 in structure, 3 in vocabulary, and 2 in mechanics and his/her total score would be 17/20. Researches showed that the GSAT rubrics contain both validity and reliability, and there are also studies using the GSAT rubrics as the tool to measure participants’ progress in writing instruction. (Huang, 2006; Yang, 2012). It is more difficult to rate complexity by analytic scoring for its ambiguous concept. As noted earlier, complexity involves the ability to use a range of vocabulary and structures in written text so it is commonly be sub-categorized into syntactical and lexical levels. For macro perspective, mean length of sentence is often adopted to measure syntactical complexity since one could express more sophisticated meanings in longer sentences (Norris & Ortega, 2009). For micro perspective, the ratio of topic-related words. could be. adopted to measure lexical complexity for it shows learners’ lexical density (Alex Housen, Kuiken, & Vedder, 2012). However, the current study focused only on syntactical complexity based on the following reasons. First, it is difficult to define if the words are topic-related or not in a piece of writing because the meanings of words are fluid in different proficiency levels. Take the word, presentation, for example, it could mean talking to a group of people to give information but it could also mean the way in which the food is set in the dishes. Thus, a word may not be topic-related according to the meaning of lower proficiency level but could be according to the meaning of higher proficiency level. Second,. 31.

(37) there are studies using syntactical complexity to measure or evaluate learners’ writing ability (Ortega, 2003).. 2.4 Summary To address the issues discussed above, the present study is designed to address the following research questions: (1) Which of the following pedagogical instructions effectively enhance young EFL learners’ writing ability? Task-based instruction, processing instruction, or the eclectic instruction? (2) What is the relative contribution of the above three instructional methods to the young EFL learners’ writing ability? (3) Does each of the three methods impose a differential effect on different aspects of young EFL learners’ writing ability? Based on the literature review, the study made hypotheses for each research question. Hypothesis 1: PI, TBI, and the eclectic instruction could help EFL learners improve their writing ability. Hypothesis 2: The relative contributions of the three instructions are the eclectic instruction, TBI, and PI in order. Hypothesis 3: PI could have positive effect on learners’ writing ability in accuracy. TBI. 32.

(38) could improve learners’ writing ability in fluency and perhaps complexity. The eclectic instruction may be able to develop learners’ writing ability in accuracy, fluency, and complexity.. 33.

(39) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY There are five sections in this chapter: (1) setting and participants, (2) research design and intervention, (3) procedures (4) instruments, and (5) data analysis. In the first section, information about the high school, a brief description of the curriculum, the number of the participants, the background information of the participants, and the grouping policy were provided. In the second section, the design and the sequence of the study were illustrated. In the third section, the steps and the details of the research were presented. In the fourth section, the conduction of pretest, posttest, and intervention of each group in the research were covered. In the fifth section, the scoring policy and the statistical analysis were stated.. 3.1 Setting and Participants This study was conducted in a private girls’ high school in New Taipei City. The freshmen of the junior high school were divided into ten classes. The ten classes consisted of a language-gifted class, a science-gifted class, a music-gifted class; students of the other classes were assigned according to normal distribution. Since the participants would learn how to write short English essays through different instructions, sentence writing ability in English was a prerequisite for the study. However, it is difficult for most of the students in normal classes to meet this requirement. According to their English teachers’ observation. 34.

(40) and judgment, the language-gifted class and the science-gifted class were qualified for the prerequisite of the study and had a very similar baseline in their English proficiency. Thus, they were chosen as the potential participants of the study. The participants were sixty-nine freshmen from the three classes, and their ages ranged from 12 to 13 years old. They are EFL learners and the total years of English learning were seven to eight years. Their English proficiency was approximately pre-intermediate level according to the simulation test of GEPT. As for the curriculum in the school, the freshmen had seven English classes in total, four English classes, two English reading and writing classes, and one English conversation class. For English class, students were instructed as a whole class. However, students were divided into smaller groups for English reading and writing class as well as for English conversation class. In order to protect every student’s right and allow them to have an equal learning opportunity, the participants were divided into three groups and randomly distributed into the PI group, the TBI group, and the eclectic instruction group, so there was no controlled group in the study.. 3.2 Research Design The study, which was based on the pre-test-posttest design, was designed to examine a better way to improve EFL learners’ writing ability. The research design of the study is. 35.

(41) shown in Table 1. Table 1 The procedures of the research design →. Intervention. →. Post-intervention →. Group. Pretest. Posttest. PI. Writing task. PI. Questionnaire. Writing task. TBI. Writing task. TBI. Questionnaire. Writing task. Eclectic. Writing task. Eclectic. Questionnaire. Writing task. 3.3 Procedures The research took place between November 2013 and January 2014. The research procedure is illustrated in Table 2. First, the participants received a consent form. After the consent forms were signed, the participants filled in the background questionnaire. Three days later, the participants were given the pretest. After one week of pretest, the participants were given the three types of writing instruction — PI, TBI, and the eclectic instruction — in the three correspondent groups for 8 weeks, at one hour per week. During the intervention, the participants were given a writing task which was related to the topic of the week. The writing tasks during the intervention were also rated and analyzed to find out the participants’ progress. At the end of the intervention, the participants filled out the feedback questionnaire. One week after the intervention, the participants were given a writing task as posttest to find out the effects of the three writing instructions. All the results of each writing task were rated and entered into SPSS to be collected and analyzed. 36.

(42) Table 2 The procedure of the study Participants receive the consent form. ↓─── Two-day interval Before the. Participants fill out the background information questionnaire.. intervention. ↓─── One-day interval Participants take the pretest. ↓─── One-week interval. The intervention. PI group. TBI group. Eclectic group. The participants. The participants. The participants. receive writing. receive writing. receive writing. instruction through. instruction through. instruction through. processing. task-based. processing. instruction for 8. instruction for 8. instruction for 4. weeks and write a. weeks and write a. weeks and through. writing task each. writing task each. task-based. week.. week.. instruction for 4 weeks and write a writing task each week. ↓. Participants fill out the feedback questionnaire. Post-intervention ↓ Participants take the post-test. Post-test ↓ Data analysis and results. 37.

(43) 3.4 Instruments The instruments included consent forms (See Appendix 1), background information questionnaires (See Appendix 2), pretest papers (See Appendix 3), the slides and handouts for the three instructional packets, feedback questionnaires (See Appendix 4), and posttest papers (Appendix 5). In addition, the statistical software, SPSS, was used when doing data analysis. 3.4.1 Background questionnaire The background questionnaire asked about the participants’ background information such as their English learning history, their time of exposure to English, and so on. This questionnaire enabled the researcher to assure the participants are in similar learning situations before and during the intervention. 3.4.2 Pretest The pretest was a guided writing task. The task took approximately thirty minutes and the participants were required to write a short essay of about 100 to 120 words based on a topic related to their life experience. The writing in the pretest was rated and regarded as the participants’ baseline. The results were compared with the performance in the posttest to see the development of the participants’ writing ability. 3.4.3 Interventions After the pretest, the study moved forward to the intervention stage. The three groups. 38.

(44) received three different types of writing instructions, including processing instruction, task-based instruction, and the eclectic instruction. After the pretest, PI group were given writing instruction on the designed topics through processing instruction for eight weeks. TBI group were given writing instruction on the same topics as PI group but through task-based instruction for eight weeks. Due to the time limit, it was impossible to give the writing instruction in PI and TBI in one class, so the eclectic instruction group was given writing instruction on the same topics through processing instruction for the first four weeks and through task-based instruction for the latter four weeks. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the sequence of PI and TBI is more consistent with the classroom ecology, ranging from more controlled to more open-ended (p.18). The topics were designed based on the three elements of writing ability: accuracy, fluency, and complexity. They consisted of 3 topics on accuracy, 3 topics on fluency, and 2 topics on complexity. The difficulty levels of the topics were also balanced by adopting the grammar from the English textbooks of the second and third semesters. The sequence of topics was arranged from micro- to macro-skills. In this vein, the writing started from teaching the participants acceptable grammatical systems such as tense and agreement, to teaching them coherent written discourse such as transitions and conjunctions (H. D. Brown, 2006). Furthermore, all the participants of the three groups were assigned a guided writing. 39.

(45) task each week based on the topic of the week as a formative assessment in order to assess the development of the participants during the eight weeks. The topics used in the intervention are shown in Table 3 and the plan for the intervention of each week is shown in Appendix 6. Table 3 The topics of the intervention Week 1. Topic Introduction. Content Western & Eastern writing style. Focus Fluency. 1. S + V… (Book 2) 2. S + V + to V (Book 2) 2. Sentence structure. Accuracy 3. S + V + adv. (Book 2) 4. S + V + place/time (Book 2) 1. Present tense (Book 2). 3. Tense. 2. Past tense (Book 3). Accuracy. 3. Future tense (Book 3) 4. Punctuation. Punctuation (Book 2). 5. Transition. Transition (Book 2). Accuracy Fluency. Conjunction (Book 3) 6. Conjunction (1). 1. and/but/or. Fluency. 2. before/after/when Conjunction (Book 3) 7. Conjunction (2). 1. because/so. Complexity. 2. though/but 8. Adjective. Adjective (Book 2) 40. Complexity.

(46) 3.4.4 Feedback questionnaire In the post-intervention section, the participants filled out a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of three open-ended questions. Through the three questions, the researcher aimed to compare the answers of the participants from three groups and find out if the participants of the three instructional groups perceived differently and made progress in different writing aspects. In order to encouraged the participants to talk about their feelings and opinions about the instruction and self-evaluate their development fully, the participants were allowed to answer the questions in Chinese. The outcome of the questionnaires was viewed as qualitative data, analyzed, and quoted when discussing the effects of the three instructions. 3.4.5 Posttest After the intervention, the participants took the posttest. The posttest was also a guided writing task that related to the participants’ life experience. It also took approximately thirty minutes. The posttest was designed to examine the effects of the three instructions, so the writing products of the participants were rated and analyzed through SPSS to see if there were any significant differences from the pretest.. 3.5 Data Analysis Data analysis includes three sections: Scoring policy, statistical analysis, and. 41.

(47) qualitative analysis. 3.5.1 Scoring policy The scoring policy in the study adopts the guidelines of the writing test for the General Scholar Ability Test (GSAT). As mentioned in the previous chapter, the reason for choosing GSAT guidelines is that researches showed that the GSAT rubrics contain both validity and reliability. (Huang, 2006; Yang, 2012). The GSAT guidelines are divided into five categories: content, organization, grammar/sentence structure, vocabulary/spelling, and mechanics. The points assigned were 5, 5, 4, 4, 2 respectively. According to the GSAT guidelines, the five categories contain the concepts of Accuracy, Fluency, and Complexity (CAF). The first two categories, content and organization, are correspondent to the definition of fluency. The latter three categories, grammar/sentence structure, vocabulary/spelling, and mechanics, are correspondent mostly to the definitions of accuracy. As mentioned in chapter two, the study employed “mean length of sentence” to measure their syntactic complexity. The participants’ writing products were rated by two English teachers based on the GSAT guidelines. The teachers are experienced and highly-qualified. The researcher discussed the scoring policy with the raters in advance and then a norming section was held for the raters to reach a consensus before the pretest. According to the GSAT guidelines, the accepted scoring variance is within six points. If the variance were beyond six points, a third rater would be invited to participate the rating. Raters graded the writing products by. 42.

(48) giving the individual points for accuracy, fluency, syntactic complexity, and lexical complexity first and then added the points into a total score. 3.5.2 Statistical analysis The chosen statistical methods and reasons Three research questions were used in the study in order to explore the effective ways of improving young EFL learners’ writing ability. First, we sought to find out whether PI, TBI, and eclectic instruction are effective in enhancing the participants’ writing ability. Second, we examined the relative contribution of the three instructions. Third, we further analyzed if the three instructions can benefit the participants’ writing ability in particular aspects. In order to answer the three research questions, the study employed two sets of statistical analysis. For the first and second research questions, the tests (pretest and posttest) and the treatments (PI, TBI, and eclectic instruction) were defined as independent variables in the first set of statistical analysis. The total scores of the pretest and posttest were defined as the dependent variable. In order to find out which treatments could effectively improve the participants’ writing ability, the current study viewed the tests as one independent factor. Because the pretest score of a specific participant was used to compare with her own posttest score, the variable of tests was a within subject factor. Also, in order to find out the. 43.

(49) relative contribution of the writing instructions, the treatments were viewed as another independent factor. Because one participant could only receive one type of treatment and the comparison was between groups, the variable of treatments was a between subject factor in the study. Furthermore, in order to examine the general effectiveness of the three instructions, the total scores of the pretest and posttest would be a better indicator to answer the first and second research questions. In the current study, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) in mix design would be adopted to answer the first and second questions for the following reasons. First, by controlling family wise error rate, ANOVA could prevent the problem of high type I error of post hoc comparison if the pair t-test was conducted several times. Second, both the first and second research questions could be answered based on the interaction effect of tests and treatments. Thus, 3 (the treatments: PI, TBI, and eclectic) × 2 (the tests: pretest and posttest) repeated measure ANOVA in mixed design was conducted as the first set of statistical analysis in the study. For the third research question, in order to find out whether certain treatments could benefit specific writing aspects, the current study viewed both the aspects (fluency, accuracy, and complexity) and the treatments (PI, TBI, and eclectic instruction) as independent variables in the second set of statistical analysis. The sub-scores of the posttest were defined as the dependent variable. Because the three writing aspects were parts of writing ability of one specific participant, the variable of aspects was a within subject factor. As noted above,. 44.

(50) the variable of treatments was a between subject factor in the study. Furthermore, in order to examine the different aspects of one’s writing ability, the sub-scores of the posttest would be a better indicator to answer the third research questions. In the current study, the pretest scores were viewed as a covariate variable and controlled in order to prevent the participants from having a different baseline in the pretest. The reasons for the method are as follows. First, the covariate could control the proficiency difference between the participants if there were any. Second, there would not be an extra factor (pretest, posttest) which would make the second set of statistical analysis complicated. Thus, 3 (the treatments: PI, TBI, and eclectic) × 3 (the tests: pretest and posttest) repeated measure ANOVA in mixed design was conducted as the second set of statistical analysis in the study. The Procedure of the statistics The examination procedures were as follows. For the first and second research questions, the first set of statistical analysis would be conducted. First, the interaction effect would be examined to see if the total scores would be influenced by the types of treatments. If there were significant differences in the examination of interaction effect, then the post hoc comparison of the treatments and the tests would be done respectively using Tukey post-hoc analysis. By examining the simple main effect of the treatments, we could see whether the writing performances of the participants were different in the experiment after the eight-week writing instruction. The results would be the answer to the first research. 45.

(51) question. Next, examination of the simple main effect of the tests would show whether the participants were at the same baseline at the beginning of the experiment and whether the participants of the three treatment groups showed any significant differences at the end of the experiment. The results would be the answer to the second research question. For the third research question, the second set of statistical analysis would be conducted with the three sub-scores in the pretest as covariate. First, the interaction effect would be examined to see if the sub-scores of the posttest would be influenced by the types of treatments. If there were significant difference in the examination of interaction effect, then the simple comparison of the treatments and the sub-scores would be done respectively, also using Tukey post-hoc analysis. Examination of the simple main effect of the sub-scores would show whether the participants of the three treatment groups had significant difference in the sub-scores at the end of the experiment. The results would be the answer to the third research question. 3.5.3 Qualitative analysis The qualitative data in the study were served as an additional source of information to validate the results of the quantitative data. In order to more accurately reflect the qualitative data, the researcher read through the feedback questionnaire, summarized the participants’ feelings and opinions, and categorized these summaries. Then the data were reexamined and the frequency of each type of opinions was calculated and converted into. 46.

(52) percentage to show the tendency of the three instructional groups. Besides, some identified excerpts would be used as examples of the participants’ perception of the three writing instructions. With information from both the quantitative and qualitative data, the researcher hoped to find out the effects of applying different writing instructions to improve learners’ writing ability in EFL junior high school context.. 47.

(53) CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS The results of the study are presented in this chapter. This chapter comprises four sections. The first section presents the descriptive statistics of the study. The second section shows the statistic results of the first set of statistical analysis and the results could answer the first and second research questions. The third section shows the statistical results of the third research question. The fourth section shows the results of the qualitative data. 4.1 Descriptive Statistics As stated in the previous chapter, the scoring rubric of GSAT was employed in rating the participants’ writing performances. The current study combined the five categories into two sub-scores correspondent to fluency and accuracy respectively. Furthermore, the mean length of sentence was the third sub-score correspondent to syntactical complexity. Table 4 presents the means and standard deviations of total scores for the participants’ writing performance by the tests (pretest and posttest) and the treatments (PI, TBI, and eclectic instruction). It also shows the means and standard deviations for the participants’ pretest and posttest sub-scores (fluency, accuracy, and complexity) of the three instructional groups.. 48.

(54) Table 4 The descriptive statistics for the participants’ writing performance Group. N. Pretest Total score. PI 23 TBI 23 Eclectic 23 Total 69. Fluency. Posttest. Accuracy. Complexity. Total score. Fluency. Accuracy. Complexity. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. 10.13 10.57 10.61 10.43. 1.424 1.199 1.033 1.230. 4.48 4.83 4.83 4.71. .846 .650 .576 .709. 5.65 5.74 5.78 5.72. .775 .864 .850 .820. 8.14 8.76 8.16 8.35. 1.508 1.039 .989 1.219. 12.78 14.04 14.61 13.81. 1.204 1.107 1.033 1.342. 5.70 6.91 7.48 6.70. .703 .996 .790 1.115. 7.09 7.13 7.13 7.12. .848 .548 .626 .676. 11.61 13.81 12.79 12.74. 1.746 4.376 3.409 3.429. Note: The full point of total score was twenty points. The full point of fluency and accuracy sub-scores were both 10 points. The mean length of sentence accounted for syntactical complexity.. 49.