CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter, the major findings of the study are summarized first. Some
pedagogical implications for the teaching of English writing are also discussed.
Finally, the researcher will discuss the limitations of the present study and further
provide directions for future research.
Summary of Major Findings
Effects of Writing Practices on Students’ Writing
Dialogue journal writing and guided writing were both effective ways to
improve students’ writing ability. The comparison of the participants’ writing scores
between the pre- and post-tests indicated that both groups made significant mean
gains in their overall writing performance in their writing post-test.
The participants in the dialogue journal group, apart from the significant mean
gains in overall writing proficiency, made significant improvement in their grammar,
diction and spelling, and mechanics. Improvement in content was also noted even
though it was not significant. The writing of the participants in the guided writing
group, on the other hand, was observed to improve significantly in all five
components of content, organization, grammar, diction and spelling, and mechanics,
apart from the significant improvement in overall writing performance. Their
notable improvement in organization verifies that the instruction in organization via
model texts indeed exerted positive influence on students’ development in
organization.
Specifically worth noting was the conspicuously significant progress in
grammar both groups exhibited. Both groups improved most in grammar between
the two writing tests. The mean gains in grammar made by the dialogue journal
group and the guided writing group, .34 and .59 respectively, were statistically
significant and remarkably higher than those they made in the other four writing
components.
Other than the improvement in the overall writing performance and the five
writing components, greater improvement was also observed in students’ writing
fluency at the end of the writing experiment. Within the same time limit,
participants in both the dialogue journal group and the guided writing group produced
considerably more words in their post-tests than in their pre-tests. Also, some of
them specified in the evaluation questionnaire that they perceived themselves to be
more fluent in writing at the end of the writing practices.
Different from what was expected, the dialogue journal group did not excel the
guided writing group in the improvement of writing proficiency; in fact, the guided
writing group showed significantly more progress in their overall writing performance.
Nevertheless, creativity was displayed in the writing produced by the dialogue journal
group. Some students included their own creations of poems or stories in the
journals. The participants in the dialogue journal group also pointed out in the
evaluation questionnaire that dialogue journal writing promoted their creativity and
stimulated their imagination.
Effect of Writing Practices on Students’ Writing Apprehension
It was found that at the end of the research, majority of the participants in both
groups held a positive attitude toward the writing practices they were engaged in. It
was found, based on the comparisons of the scores between the pre-SLWAT and
post-SLWAT, that the writing apprehension of both groups was reduced at the end of
the research. In other words, both dialogue journal writing and guided writing
practices helped reduce students’ anxiety for English writing. Students became less
anxious and more confident when they were asked to write an English composition.
Further examination in the comparison of the writing apprehension test scores
revealed that the writing apprehension of the dialogue journal group decreased
significantly more than that of the guided writing group. That is to say, dialogue
journal practice was more effective than guided writing practice in reducing students’
writing apprehension.
Other Important Findings
Besides the major findings reported above, the study reveals some other
valuable findings. First of all, the analyses of participants’ responses to the
evaluation questionnaire revealed a higher degree of activeness in language learning.
Many participants reported to have reviewed the vocabulary, phrases, and sentence
patterns that they had learned in order to use them in their writing. They were also
found to have learned new words and phrases by referring to the dictionary when
trying hard to translate their ideas in English.
Secondly, students’ motivation and eagerness for reading teacher’s feedback
was clearly observed. The majority of the students looked forward to receiving their
responded journals or marked compositions from the teacher every week. Moreover,
teacher’s feedback seemed to play an influential role in students’ writing development
as well as their attitude toward writing. Most students in the dialogue journal group
found teacher’s feedback motivating and encouraging while some also desired
teacher’s corrections for grammar. The participants in the guided writing group, on
the other hand, perceived the value of teacher’s comments in the assistance of refining
their writing skills. Besides, the evaluation questionnaire also revealed their growth
in confidence. Students reported that they felt more confident when they saw fewer
red-ink marks in their writing, a phenomenon signaling improvement in writing.
The responses in the evaluation questionnaire to the preference for topics and
the quantity of the writing also revealed some important information. A preference
for suggested topics and topics of their own choice was observed among the
participants in the dialogue journal group while the guided writing group
demonstrated greater preference to assigned and suggested topics. Yet, participants
in both groups agreed that it was reasonable to write one English journal or
composition a week.
Pedagogical Implications
The study findings indicated the usefulness of both dialogue journal writing and
guided writing in EFL writing instruction. Guided writing practice was found
particularly effective in improving students’ writing proficiency while dialogue
journal writing was especially valuable in reducing students’ writing apprehension.
These findings offer some important pedagogical implications for the EFL writing
teachers in the senior high school.
First of all, the results of the present study proved the values of model texts and
the organizational instruction on students’ writing. Model texts indeed provide
useful examples for introducing the organizational development in English writing.
As Charney and Carlson (1995) and Stolarek (1994) stated, the provision of model
texts increased students’ awareness of topical development and the model texts were
useful for presenting features of different forms of writing. EFL teachers can use
model texts as examples.
In addition, explicit instruction of organization through model texts is a
powerful approach which enables students to gain a clearer idea of the text structure
they need for writing their compositions. When teaching the organization, the use of
the organizational outlines makes English writing easier for students as illustrated in
the guided writing group. It would be better for teachers to provide explicit
instruction on organizational development in the teaching of English writing.
Nevertheless, teachers should be careful with the selection of model texts.
Texts that are too difficult should be avoided. Some students in the guided writing
group found the texts taken from the English textbook too difficult to imitate or too
dull; therefore, it is advisable that the teachers select texts from different sources other
than the textbook that meet their students’ levels and needs.
Even though the results of the current study favored the use of guided writing
practice in the development of students’ writing, the importance of dialogue
journaling in writing instruction can never be ignored. Dialogue journaling has its
values for the development of writing fluency and creativity as indicated in the study.
It engages students in exploration and development of ideas, and thus can serve as a
pre-writing activity that helps students gather ideas. In addition, since dialogue
journal writing can effectively reduce students’ anxiety, it is particularly suitable for
beginning writers who have little experience in English writing. It is also
recommended for the highly apprehensive writers who need a non-threatening
environment in which they can feel less inhibited.
EFL writing teachers are advised to integrate dialogue journal writing and
guided writing practices in their writing course as well. These two writing practices
place different focuses in the writing instruction and facilitate the learning of different
writing aspects. They thus can complement each other and be implemented in
different stages of writing process. As indicated, dialogue journal writing is valuable
for the development of writing fluency and idea generation; therefore, it can be used
in the initial stage of writing for idea generation. On the other hand, guided writing
can be used after students’ first drafts on a particular topic. Its efficiency in
cultivation of rhetorical form and organizational development enables students to
produce a more systematic and logical piece of writing.
Finally, since guided writing requires students to pay close attention to the
organization and grammar of their writing, frustration may occur when their
compositions are marked constantly with red ink. The use of dialogue journaling
can then relieve students’ pressure of having to be consistently aware of the rhetorical
and linguistic forms of their writing. Dialogue journal writing allows students to
express their thoughts and feelings freely about a particular topic without worrying
about language forms. Students become motivated and are free of the restrictions
imposed by the form-focused writing activity. The enjoyable dialogue journal
writing can thus be the “spice” in students’ writing process. As a result, a balanced
combination of the two writing approaches would be beneficial for students to learn
English writing in various aspects.
Limitations of the Study
This study examined the effects of guided writing and dialogue writing on
students’ writing ability and writing apprehension. In this section, limitations of the
present study are presented.
The first limitation is that the duration of the writing experiment was very
limited. The writing practices in this study lasted only 14 weeks. Writing is a
process; a 14-week writing practice is not enough to recognize a full developmental
progression of writing skills. A study requiring students to write over a longer
period of time may acquire more data to validate the results. Therefore, in order to
assess this complicated issue more fairly, longitudinal studies are needed.
Another limitation lies in the relatively small sample size. Only 70 first-year
senior high school students involved in the current study, and they were not randomly
sampled. The results, thus, may not be generalized to all the senior high school
students at intermediate level in Taiwan, let alone students at other levels. It would
be beneficial to conduct this study with different groups of participants and involve
more samples of participants.
A third concern is related to a narrow selection of data sources. A limited
approach was adapted to evaluate students’ writing performance. The present study
examined students’ writing improvement by only analyzing their writing tests in terms
of the five writing components. The study could have provided more insights into
the relationship between the teacher’s feedback and the students’ writing improvement
as well as their attitudinal changes if the students’ journal entries and writing drafts
had been included and analyzed.
Finally, the source of model texts was confined to the English textbook. The
textbook includes only a few styles of writing and provides limited examples for
students. Also, some reading texts in the textbook are not suitable to use as writing
models because their structures are too difficult to imitate. Thus, it is better to
include model texts of various writing styles by selecting texts from different reading
resources, and use texts with careful organization as model texts.
Suggestions for Future Research
The current research had contributed to the research on the effects of guided
writing and dialogue journal writing on Taiwanese senior high school students’
writing ability and writing apprehension. Considering the pedagogical implications
and limitations of this study, some directions for future research are recommended.
First, future studies could be conducted for a longer period of time, for example
an entire school year. It is possible that a longer period of study may lead to a more
favorable result that the dialogue journal group may outperform the guided writing
group in their overall writing performance and content.
Future researchers may also consider investigating the effects of teacher’s
responses on students’ writing performance and writing apprehension. It was
observed in the present study that teacher’s feedback also exercised certain influence
on students’ writing and attitudes toward writing. Therefore, the potential impact of
teacher feedback on students’ writing development and anxiety reduction is worth
exploring.
Additionally, it is recommended to recruit EFL students with higher English
writing proficiency in the future studies. The participants in the current study were
beginning writers of low- intermediate to intermediate English proficiency. Future
research with participants of varied levels may yield different results that will
contribute more evidence for the use of dialogue journal writing and guided writing
practices.
Finally, this study could be replicated by using other types of dialogue journal
writing, such as student-student dialogue journals, or other forms of guided writing
activities, like revision exercises. The use of different forms of writing practices
may produce results, which can be used to inform the practitioners of the possibilities
for various forms of writing practices.
