Investigating the Effectiveness of Process Writing Approach on Pre-intermediate Learners’ use of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in Paragraph Writing

Abstract

The present study investigates the effectiveness of implementing the process writing approach in enhancing pre-intermediate learners’ use of grammatical cohesive devices. It is based upon the hypothesis that the implementation of the process writing approach might enhance the learners’ use of grammatical cohesive devices in paragraph writing. A quasi experimental design, non-equivalent group pre-test post-test design, was adopted as a research methodology to answer the research question and to consider the set hypothesis. It relied on a quantitative data collection tool in which a corpus consisting of forty (80) paragraphs written by pre-intermediate learners from Fly High School private school - Taher province- were collected and analyzed in both the pre-test and post-test. A sample of 40 (out of 90) participants was involved in the quasi-experiment and assigned into two different groups. The first group was instructed on the writing skill under the scope of the process approach in which grammatical cohesive devices were taught explicitly. The second was instructed according to the product approach. A checklist adopted from Halliday and Hasan ‘s theory (1976) was used to analyze the written paragraphs, and SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21) was used to elicit and interpret numerical data. The findings revealed that the participants of the experimental group developed in using reference and conjunctions appropriately in their final output after the period of treatment. On the other hand, the control group did not mark any difference in terms of grammatical cohesive devices use in their written productions. Hence, the findings obtained in this study partly confirm the hypothesis. In the light of the findings, some pedagogical recommendations and suggestions for further research were put forward