Abstract
Background: English Second Language (ESL) learners have difficulty constructing sentences due to internalising information in their home language and thereafter translating it into English. Learners who have difficulty speaking English generally encounter problems writing it, which hampers their creative writing ability.Objectives: The purpose of the research was to identify a teaching strategy to facilitate ESL learners with creative writing. This study explored the influence of flashcards on the creative writing skills of Grade 1 ESL learners and improved the researchers’ teaching practice.Method: This qualitative study depicted an action research design and utilised an inductive approach to data analysis. Convenience sampling was used when selecting the participants who were 31 Grade 1 learners in a school in Pietermaritzburg. The flashcards were used during the implementation stage of the action research process as an intervention to enhance learners’ creative writing skills.Findings: The findings indicate that learners who participated in the study had improved in their written assessments. There were three themes identified, which included misspelt words, incorrect use of tenses and ungrammatical sentence construction. Flashcards revealed the correct sentence writing techniques by depicting sentences. Learners’ written pieces were more logical and they participated actively during lessons. This enhanced the researcher’s teaching practice, which catered to both visual and auditory learners.Conclusion: The findings suggest that the use of flashcards had a positive effect on ESL learners’ creative writing skills. This encouraged participatory teaching and learning, which can be of benefit to many teachers seeking to engage learners using alternate learning styles.
Highlights
Teachers have the challenging task of developing learners cognitively and linguistically (Haerazi & Irawan 2019)
It is imperative that teachers devise appropriate teaching strategies that are applicable to both English Home Language and English Second Language (ESL) learners
We argue that conducting this action research is a ‘transformative professional development’ (Kennedy 2014:689) activity which is liberated from the imposed activities of the school management team or Department of Basic Education officials
Summary
Teachers have the challenging task of developing learners cognitively and linguistically (Haerazi & Irawan 2019). The issue facing many teachers in South Africa is the difference between the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) and learners’ home language (Jordaan 2011a) For this reason, it is imperative that teachers devise appropriate teaching strategies that are applicable to both English Home Language and English Second Language (ESL) learners. Jordaan (2011a) established that South African teachers found it difficult to teach at different linguistic levels for ESL and English Home Language learners in their classes. This resulted in time pressures when they had to pre-teach the vocabulary and concepts required in a particular subject (Jordaan 2011a). Learners who have difficulty speaking English generally encounter problems writing it, which hampers their creative writing ability
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