Computational Thinking Approach: Its Impact on Students’ English Writing Skills

Abstract

AbstractWriting is a challenging task in the process of foreign language acquisition. Writing strategies are determined ways that students resolve issues that arise during the writing process. A recent academic study considered developing a learning activity incorporating the Computational thinking (CT) approach into English language teaching. This study aims at applying CT to English learning classrooms to enhance the students’ English writing skills. The writing strategy of prewriting, peer feedback, and writing introduced computational thinking to students in an English writing classroom. The quasi-experiment was applied to 58 university students for nine meetings. The computational thinking subscales (decomposition, abstraction, algorithmic thinking, evaluation, and generalization) and the writing strategy subscale of “before writing” were analyzed using a non-parametric test (the Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney test). The writing strategy subscales of “when writing” and “revising” were analyzed using ANCOVA. The findings show that students’ writing skills improve significantly after practicing CT and writing strategies.KeywordsComputational thinkingWriting strategyWriting skillsInnovative teaching