A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN PROCESS AND PRODUCT APPROACH IN WRITTEN COMPOSITION IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOL IN PANKSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background to the Study

Good writing skill is an important aspect in communication. Writing becomes common necessity in communication, for example, writing announcements, advertisements, letters, information, and notice. People who have good writing skill deliver what they meant easily. On the other way, people without good writing skill will find difficulty to deliver their message. To be able to write, people should master grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, organization, and writing mechanic.

There are some points that are needed to produce a good writing. Good writing should present correct grammar. Grammatical error sometimes can be accepted in spoken but not in written text. So, it is important to use a good grammatical skill in producing a good writing. Good grammatical skills lead to credibility of the writing. Good grammar skill is important to enhance the readability of the writing, when readers encounter misspelled words and grammatical errors, it distractsthem from the message of the text. In addition, words choice is also an important thing to be considered in writing. It means that vocabulary should be mastered. It is clear that words choice effect writing.

The writing skill, which is focused in this research work, has not received the right attention in schools, according to researchers like Odeh (2000) and Akinwamide (2007). There are multiplicity of factors and shortcomings for this poor attention. For instance, English language is a second language inNigeria and there are limited resources in its teaching and learning. Added to these, is the writing skill’s complexity as a generative and productive language skill. All these have been making performance in the skill a herculean task to accomplish before the students. Added to the above reasons is that the language teachers are mostly second language users as well, who also have their own limitations; it is against this background that the Nigerian student is expected to attain competency in the writing skill to pass examination and make way for him/her in professional callings in order to demonstrate proficiency in the writing skill for global acceptability.

Writing is a skill, which demands students to plan and organize their imagination clearly and in sequential order to fulfill the essence of writing. Composition teaching and writing is or are more difficult than teaching and practicing other language skills. This is in agreement with the views of Izang (2015) citing Bell and Burnaby (1984) that writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of a number of variables simultaneously. By implication, it means the writer must plan the content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and formation of ideas.

Nunan David (2000) expresses his view that “Writing is not a natural activity. All physically and mentally normal people learn to speak a language. Yet all people have to be taught how to write” (pp 48-49). It is right from this perspective to say that the teaching and learning of writing should be organized and accompanied with concerted effort of the language teacher and careful approach of the students.

Akinwamide (2008) says complexity also arises in language teaching with regard to teachers’qualifications and the time allotted to the teaching of any of the macro skills of writing. He says furtherthat the teacher may speak the language natively or he/she might have studied it on second language basis. It is therefore obvious that some teachers may either gloss over or ignore certain basic skills they find problematic themselves in the teaching processes. The technical nature of writing and the need to use writing to express a writer’s thought in a logical and coherent manner call for it to be taught well. All the other macro-skills of language are taught without facing serious challenges on how to coordinate ideas, thoughts and the application of the mechanics as it is required in writing skill.

The dissatisfaction experienced with the traditional method made researchers to come out with the view that writing should be in multiple-draft as against mimicking a model given by a competent writer. The belief that outlines their view is itemized as follows:

(1) Writing is a complex, unitary process that involves much more than the exercise of its component skills.

(2) Writing requires an orderly integration of the random flow of thoughts and feelings.

(3) Students should write at a level appropriate to their age and experience.

(4) Frequent, guided writing experience is critical in a quality programme of composition.

(5) Preparation for the act of writing is a decisive factor in the quality of the results.

(6) Students can benefit by working from oral to written form.

(7) Application of sound grammatical principles is essential to quality writing. These principles are best developed in the context of writing.

 (8) Every writing act benefits from the assumption of a rhetorical stance, in which the writer makesdeliberate decisions regarding voice, audience, purpose and form.

(9) Writing consists of the initial commitment to paper of a first draft, followed by a series of informedrevisions.

(10) Writing “errors” are more likely to occur at the surface level in the conventions of standard writtenEnglish than in the deep linguistic structure of basic thought.

(11) Students are capable of intelligent responses to each other’s writing; educational value accrues toboth the student writer and the reader from these editing experiences.

(12) Teacher response and evaluation are to enhance generative thinking in students.

It is in the light of the above discussion that this present study aims at making a comparative analysis of students’ performance in process and product approaches in written composition in selected secondary school in Pankshin local government area

• Statement of the Problem

Over the years, there is a growing concern over the rate of failure of students in English internal and external examinations. This rate of failure been blamed on the teachers, students and other education stakeholders. However, less attention has been paid to the types of teaching approaches.

The teaching approaches mostly used in secondary schools for teaching writing is the product approach. Most teachers are not concerned with the process involved in writing, they just give a model and students imitate it and produce a product. No wonder we end up producing “copy and past graduates” who cannot generate their own ideas, but prefer to copy of works which are already made (Iliya, 2017).

It is in the light of the above that this study seeks to make a comparative analysis of students’ performance in process and product approach in written composition in selected Secondary School in Pankshin Local Government Area.

• Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis of students’ performance in process and product approach in written composition in selected Secondary Schoolsin Pankshin Local Government Area. Other specific objectives of the study are:

1. To determine the performance of students who are exposed to the product approach before and after the experiment.
2. To examine the performance of students who were exposed to the process approach of writing before and after the experiment.
3. To evaluate the difference in the performance of students who were exposed to process approach and those who were exposed to the product approach.
   • Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

1. What is the performance of students who are exposed to the product approach before and after the experiment?
2. What is the performance of students who were exposed to the process approach of writing before and after the experiment?

• What is the difference in the cumulative performance of students who were exposed to process approach and those who were exposed to the product approach?
  • Research Hypotheses

H₀: There is no significant difference in the performance of students who were taught writing using product approach and those who were taught using process approach.

H_a: There is a significant difference in the performance of students who were taught writing using product approach and those who were taught using process approach.

• Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will be of benefit to students, teachers, curriculum planners/developers, Ministry of Education and future researchers.

Students will also benefit from the findings of this study as the use of process approach in the teaching of writing will boost their achievement and help to increase their retention of how a standard piece of writing should be written. The findings will also help them to develop more interest in writing, acquire and develop scientific skills which will help them in their career choice particularly those careers geared towards being secretaries, journalists, etc.

The findings of this study will be of benefit to teachers of English as they will help teachers in choosing appropriate teaching writing approach capable of releasing students’ tension toward the subject. They will motivate teachers to develop interest in utilizing different methods like peer-writing and repeated drafts methods in teaching writing and selecting suitable teaching methods that will be a possible means towards reducing failure in English language.

The findings of this study will also benefit curriculum planners in curriculum planning, as using process approach will be encouraged as methods of teaching writing.

The study when completed, will serve as a reference materials to future researchers who will want to carry out a research under the same topic.

The Federal Ministry of Education can also benefit by using the findings of this study to engage teachers and administrators in training programmes that can model this teaching writing approaches.

• Scope and Delimitation of the Study

The researcher is aware of other writing challenges, existing methods and other problems in writing as a skill, however, the present study is limited to a comparative analysis of students’ performance in process and product approach in written composition. It is restricted to selected secondary schools in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State. However, despite the fact that the study is restricted to the selected Local Government Area, its findings will be generic or it can be generalized to other parts of the state and country at large.

• Operational Definitions of Terms

The following terms are defined based on the way they are contextually used in the course of this research:

Process Approach: It is a method of teaching writing that goes through stages of learning.

Product Approach: This is a method of teaching writing which does not care about the stages of writing buy only the final product.

Content: Materials and points which support a subject matter.

Organization: Arranging of points in sentences and paragraphs.

Expression: Language use in writing to convey information; for instance, correct sentences

Mechanical Accuracy: It takes care of checking correct spellings and punctuation marks.