Improving Language Preparatory School Students` Writing Skills through Process Approach

Abstract

An increasing number of studies has been conducted about the approaches to improve learners` writing in an Academic Writing course. However, no approach stood out as the most efficient one. In this respect, process based approach and product based approach were compared in this study. The study was conducted on language preparatory school students at a prestigious private university in Erbil over 17 weeks. Simple random sampling method was employed to choose the sample from the population. Experimental and control group students were equal as 20. Experimental group students took instructions based on the steps of process approach, whereas control group students followed the steps of product approach. Each student was required to write about 8 topics regardless of being in control or experimental group. The students took two exams as pretest and posttest to make comparisons through SPSS 23. Independent samples t test p value was measured as .004 which was significant. Also, paired samples t test p value was .000 which was also highly significant in experimental group. These results reveal that the students who followed a process based approach instruction outperformed the students who got a product approach based instruction. Similarly, the questionnaire and interview analysis as a part of qualitative data uncovered that the students` satisfaction rate was higher once they followed a process based approach writing instruction. Findings of this study suggest that process approach can be integrated into Academic Writing curriculums without having any hesitation.