Expository Essay Research Articles

Integrating STAD and flipped learning in expository writing skills: Impacts on students’ achievement and perceptions

The current research examined the impact of the Student Team Achievement Division (STAD, a structured cooperative learning method) and flipped learning on improving students’ expository writing skills and their perceptions about learning. The study was carried out in 11 weeks and employed a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design through which two classes were randomly assigned to STAD flipped learning and traditional face-to-face situations. The STAD flipped group (N = 24) joined a class learning expository writing instructions with STAD principles in a flipped classroom whereas their control group counterparts (N = 24) were enrolled in a class and received the same expository writing instruction in a traditional lecture-based class. The expository essay pretests and posttests along with post-treatment for both groups and the semi-structured interviews for the experimental group only were used to collect data. ANCOVA analyses showed that the intervention significantly improved students’ expository writing scores through this model of teaching. Subsequent analyses demonstrated that the learners had positive perceptions and experiences related to the STAD flipped learning, instructor support, team support, and personal feelings about the course themes.

Grammatical Errors in the Expository Essays of Public Health Students of Njala University

The purpose of this study was to identify and analyse the grammatical errors in the expository essay of second year students pursuing a programme of study leading to the Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health at the Njala University, Bo Campus. 100 students were randomly selected from among 190 students of the same class who wrote the test on a subject matter that falls within their domain. Errors were identified and categorized into ten: verb usage, noun usage, punctuation marks, spellings, wrong words, capitalization, pronoun usage, prepositions, abbreviations/coinages and articles. To ascertain the percentage and mean score of each error category, descriptive statistics was used. Using this criterion, five error areas: verb usage, punctuation marks, spellings, wrong words and capitalisation were identified to be significant because of mean scores exceeding 2.0 in each case. The remaining error categories were not significant but show that the students have problem using them correctly in expressing their ideas in written form. Most of the errors made were as a result of overgeneralisation of grammatical rules, L1 interference and ignorance of many rules of English Grammar, and the inability of second language learners to construct the forms of the target language because of inadequate exposure to the target language. These error problems would only be overcome if the learners are adequately exposed to the grammar of English from primary school to university, and if they also adopt favourable attitude towards the learning of English.

Process-Genre Approach in Teaching Writing to Language Preparatory School Students at a Private University in Iraq

Although voluminous studies have been conducted about product, process and genre approach in writing, only few studies have been observed to measure the effects of process-genre approach on students` writing performance in an Academic Writing course at a university level in Iraq. In this respect, this study investigated the effects of process genre-based approach on Academic Writing score of language preparatory school students over 12 weeks using pre-test and post-test. Considering this aim, 30 students were divided into two groups as control or experimental group through purposive sampling method. Experimental group students were exposed to process-genre approach, whereas control group students were engaged in product approach. Each student wrote an expository essay about 1 topic which was related to IELTS Writing Task 1 biweekly amounting to 5 topics during the study. Quantitative data were analyzed by IBM SPSS 23 through independent samples t test and paired samples t test both of which confirmed that the students in experimental group progressed more significantly than the students in control group. Furthermore, findings of the quantitative data were complemented by qualitative data with students` genuine opinions in the interview. Findings of this study may offer some novel ideas about integrating approaches to increase students` success and enthusiasm in Academic Writing courses on a global scale.

Back to “I”: Recasting Students and Teachers as Problem-Explorers through Podcasting

A tired expository essay unit is replaced with podcasting to reposition students and their teacher within authentic, joyful writing experiences.

Gonzalo Guerrero and the Psychology of Identity

Historiographic analysis is underused in academic psychology. In this expository essay, I intend to show that historical events or persons can be described with reference to theory and research provided by empirical psychology. Besides providing evidence-based grounds for a more penetrating historical account, the conclusions drawn from a historiographic analysis may feedback into psychological theory by generating new testable hypotheses. Whereas standard empirical research is focused on statistical associations among quantitative variables obtained in random samples, historiographic analysis is most informative with the use of extreme cases, that is, by asking and showing the limits of what is possible. This essay focuses on the story of Gonzalo Guerrero to explore psychological processes involved in identity transformation.

The Use of Explicit Instruction in Writing Amongst Students of Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

The study sought to examine the use of Explicit Instruction in writing lessons at some selected Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The collective case study design informed by constructivist grounded theory data analysis methods was used. Data were collected and analyzed using three instruments namely a semi-structured interview, sample texts on argumentative and expository essays and observations. The study revealed that combining the cognitive strategy of text structure knowledge application with the metacognitive strategy of self-monitoring supports the development of academic writing in students in the Colleges of Education. Also, students make mistakes in their writing and these mistakes include verb errors, article errors and wrong words. It was also revealed that with regards to Explicit Instruction in the classroom, tutors comprehensively used instructions in the language class to enhance students writing skills. This study further showed that tutors have a variety of evidence-based instructional practices that improve many different skills and student’s writing knowledge. The researcher recommended that students in Colleges of Education in Ghana are made to read extensively outside the curriculum to broaden their vocabulary repertoire so that the over-reliance on tutors for corrections can be minimized.

THE EFFECTS OF PLACE-BASED PROCESS GENRE MODULE (PBPGM) ON ESSAY WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AMONG FORM FOUR RURAL NATIONAL SECONDARY SCHOOL ESL LEARNERS

Essay writing is known to be a difficult skill among ESL learners, particularly rural students. The present study aims to measure the effects of a Place-Based Process Genre Module (PBPGM) on form four rural ESL learners’ persuasive and expository essay writing from the lens of Sociocultural Theory. A mixed-methods approach adopting a pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental is employed to determine the significant difference and the Cohen’s d effect size. Purposive random sampling is used, and 30 students in control undergo the conventional teaching, and 30 students in the experimental group undergo a 16-hour intervention of the module. The results of the study indicate that there are significant differences and large effect sizes between the two groups. The experimental group outperforms the control group in both genres. The present study contributes to the field of teaching essay writing to rural ESL learners. The study recommends that process genre approach combined with place-based model texts be incorporated to strengthen and diversify scaffolding for teaching essay writing.

The Effectiveness of the Concept Mapping Technique in Improving the Competence of Writing Expository Essays for High School Students

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the use of concept mapping techniques in improving the competence of writing exposition essays for class X SMA Negeri 1 Kasihan Bantul.
 This study uses an experimental approach. The experimental design used was Randomized Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design. There are two kinds of research variables, namely one independent variable in the form of concept mapping techniques and one dependent variable in the form of students' exposition writing competence. The sampling technique used is simple cluster random sampling. Collecting research data through the non-test method in the form of an assignment to write an exposition. The research instrument used was an essay assessment sheet accompanied by a rubric. The validity of the instrument used in this study is content validity in consultation with experts (expert judgment). Interrater technique was used to test the reliability of the instrument. The data analysis technique used t-test.
 The results showed that: (1) there was a significant difference between students' exposition writing competence before being taught using the concept mapping technique and after using the concept mapping technique with sig (p) < 0.05.

PENGARUH PENGUASAAN STRUKTUR KALIMAT TERHADAP KEMAMPUAN MENULIS EKSPOSISI PADA MURID KELAS V SEKOLAH DASAR INPRES TAMABONGONG

THE EFFECT OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE MASTERING ON EXPOSITION WRITING ABILITY IN CLASS V ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TAMABONGONG INPRESThe purpose of the study was the effect of mastery of sentence structure on the ability to write exposition in fifth grade students of Inpres Tamabongong Elementary School. This type of research is quasi-experimental because in this study no specific treatment was given, but only revealed the symptoms that had existed when this research was conducted, so there was no direct control over the independent variables. The sample in quantitative research is part of the population in a study. The number of samples in this study were 15 students. Data collection methods used are learning outcomes tests and documentation. The data analysis technique used is the first by using a descriptive statistical approach and linear regression. The results showed that 1) The mastery of sentence structure was based on the results of the categorization of mastery of sentence structure in students, it was found that they were still in the category of scores of 14-20, scores of 26-30, and at scores of 14-20 whose mastery of sentence structure had not increased like the others. While in the posttest, 14 people were found to be moderate and there was 1 person whose mastery of sentence structure got better who was in the high category. 2) The results of data analysis obtained a probability value (p-value) of 0.042. Because the probability value (p-value) is less than 0.050, it means that the regression model in this study can be said that X (mastery of sentence structure) is dependent on Y (ability to write expository essays).

Influence of Language Anxiety and Prior Knowledge on EFL Students’ Performance in Essay Writing

Recent research efforts in teacher education have focused on innovative instructional delivery with little attention to learner-related variables such as language anxiety and prior- knowledge that can affect learning outcomes in English essay writing. Notwithstanding these interventions, the problems of mass failure and poor quality of essays still persist among EFL students majoring English language. Therefore, the current study examined the relationship between language anxiety and prior knowledge on EFL students’ performance in essay writing. The research adopted a descriptive research design of survey type. Data were collected using two research instruments: Language Anxiety and Prior Knowledge Questionnaire and an Achievement Test in Expository Writing. Three hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance, and 350 students were randomly selected. The results showed that there were significant relationship between the independent variables and students’ achievement in expository essay writing.

ERROR ANALYSIS OF CONJUNCTION IN EXPOSITORY ESSAY WRITING BY JORDANIAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS STUDYING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL)

Academic writing is used a lot in the academic field and general writing as a distinct genre discourse in the linguistic and socio-cultural fields. Good writers generally use well-formed sentences; they often establish connections between sentences. Writing an essay is still a critical problem for most EFL undergraduate students since they are still not able to establish connections between sentences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of conjunctions as cohesive devices in expository essays produced by EFL fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in the English language at the Department of English language and literature, Hashemite University in Jordan. A corpus of 30 expository essays was collected by using a simple purposive sampling technique to answer the questions of the study based on the theory of cohesion analysis by refining the grammatical cohesive related aspect based on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) taxonomy of conjunction. The results of this study confirm earlier studies showing English learners as a foreign language are having difficulty in using conjunctions in their writing. This study contributes to the written discourse and pedagogy within the field of teaching English for academic writing. The study recommends that grammatical cohesive devices and their function should be explained to the students through explicit teaching, not as separated grammatical items but as discourse semantic resources of text creation.

THE ROLE OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION IN THE TEXT QUALITY AMONG JORDANIAN EFL STUDENTS IN EXPOSITORY ESSAYS

The present paper shares interest that many scholars and linguists have highlighted in investigating the relationship between writing quality and grammatical cohesion devices. The aim of this study is to find out the relationship between the use of grammatical cohesive devices on the overall quality of expository essays produced by EFL fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in the English language at the Department of English language and literature Hashemite University in Jordan. It seeks to determine the efficacy of academic writing by Jordanian EFL students. Thirty purposive samples of compositions were collected and analyzed by the researcher to measure the relationship between the score of the writing quality and the grammatical cohesion devices in students' writing based on (1) analytical scale Jacob et al., (1981), and (2) Halliday and Hasan (1976) taxonomy of grammatical cohesion. The results showed that grammatical cohesive devices did not constitute a statistically significant correlation with the score of writing quality. It also revealed that the EFL students' written compositions were not successful due to their incapability to utilize the different forms of grammatical cohesive devices and their lack of knowledge about effectively using these devices in their academic writing.

Genre-based Approach to Writing in EFL Contexts

Writing is a challenging and demanding skill for EFL learners in Vietnam. Teaching writing skills at Vietnamese universities is problematic since different approaches to writing have not been implemented effectively. Mainly, a genre-based approach to writing has not yet been implemented in EFL writing classrooms successfully. This paper investigates how the genre-based writing approach has been taught and learned at Van Lang University. The study mentions some critical notions of systemic functional linguistics, genre-based writing approach, and the importance and effects of genre-based approach to writing. 128 students turned in their midterm essays in week 5 of the 10-week writing course. These 128 expository essays were analyzed and synthesized using Microsoft Excel to calculate the differences in move-step structure. The findings indicated that the students had difficulty following the fixed move-step structure, and they also faced challenges of lexico-grammatical usage for the expository. Hence, the study suggests some implications for applying a genre-based approach to writing for EFL teachers and students and suggests further research.

Influence of Language Anxiety and Prior Knowledge on ESL Students’ Achievement in Expository Essay in Ibadan North LGA, Nigeria

Recent research efforts in teacher education in Nigeria have largely focused on innovative instructional delivery with little attention to learner-related variables such as language anxiety and prior knowledge that can influence learning outcomes in English composition in ESL classrooms. Notwithstanding these interventions, the problems of mass failure and poor quality of essays still persist in Nigerian schools. Studies have confirmed that language-related anxiety and prior knowledge in ESL classroom can influence students’ achievement irrespective of the quality of instruction received by learners in a second/foreign language classroom. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between language anxiety and prior knowledge on achievement in expository essay. Three null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance, and 350 participants were randomly selected from four senior secondary schools. Data were collected using two research instruments and the results showed that there was no significant relationship between the independent variables and students’ achievement in expository essay. Also, there were no composite and relative contributions of language anxiety and prior knowledge on students’ achievement in expository essay. The study was concluded by making recommendations to ESL teachers and students on how to improve achievement in expository writing.

Peer Assessment in Writing Expository Essays: A Research on Tenth Graders of Vocational School

The present work was devoted to: (a) exploring peer assessment instruments (i.e., assessment sheets) utilized by teachers in teaching expository essay writing for tenth graders of vocational schools; (b) discussing the implementation and (c) the impact of peer assessment of the peer assessment activities. In this study, the data were from information in the peer assessment implementation. Methods of data collection involved observation, interview, and documentation. The results showed that: (a) The peer assessment instruments were in compliance with the competence standards in student assessment. (b) The implementation of expository writing teaching and learning was to find out students’ progress and outcomes; it also aimed to improve learning processes. (c) Peer assessment activities help schools enhance their learning quality and teachers in comprehending the peer assessment processes. On top of that, the assessment provides students with practical experience in assessing their peers’ works, thus boosting students’ concentration in learning. Peer assessment also measures the affective domains of students (by which it eases teachers to select appropriate teaching-learning strategies). In conclusion, the assessment on students’ social attitude fall under a good category based on the students’ average score.

Morphological Complexity Across Descriptive, Expository, and Narrative Text Types in Iranian Lower-Intermediate Language Learners

Morphological complexity is one of the dimensions of complexity that has been increasingly analyzed over the last few years. However, results from previous studies drawing on only a single text type are inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of text types (descriptive, narrative, and expository) on the morphological complexity of essays written by Iranian English language learners. The participants included 87 lower-intermediate male and female L2 learners at six language institutes in Qazvin, Iran, who were selected from 127 language learners taking an Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants wrote on each text type in three consecutive weeks as a part of their classroom activity. The morphological complexity of verbs and nouns was separately calculated using the morphological complexity index. The data were analyzed using a series of Friedman and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. The findings did not show any statistically significant differences across text types for nominal inflectional diversity; however, verbal inflectional diversity was statistically significant across text types, with narrative essays morphologically more complex than descriptive and expository essays. The findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers and L2 teachers.

Writing expository essays from social studies texts: a self-regulated strategy development study

This study examined the effectiveness of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) to improve students’ ability to write expository essays after reading social studies text. Third-grade general education teachers (N = 14) were randomly assigned by clusters to SRSD or a business as usual control condition. One hundred and eighty consented students participated in the full study. Teachers in the SRSD condition participated in 12 h of practice-based professional development (PBPD) before implementing the SRSD intervention. They also received 30-min biweekly coaching sessions across the 16 weeks of the study. Initially, teachers provided SRSD strategy instruction in TIDE (Topic Sentence, Important Details, Explain Details, Ending) for planning and writing expository essays. Then, teachers spent an additional 8 weeks teaching students to use TIDE for close reading, planning, and writing expository essays using social studies text. Multilevel random effects models indicated SRSD students included more genre elements in their expository essays (ESg = 1.07) and produced essays of higher holistic quality (ESg = 0.72) than control students when writing an expository essay using a source text. Students in the SRSD condition also included more genre elements when writing an expository essay drawing content from memory (ESg = 1.09), and outperformed control students on a norm-referenced writing measure (ESg = 0.79). Findings support implementation of the SRSD intervention in general education classrooms within content-areas and underscore future directions for combining writing, reading, and social studies instruction.

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING: ITS EFFECTS ON STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING EXPOSITORY ESSAYS

Having the ability to think critically is prominent to aid students in dealing with academic life, filtering any information, and solving problems. This study investigates the effects of Problem-Based Learning on students’ ability in writing expository essays. It employed a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental design by utilizing intact classes of advanced writing. The study utilized a writing test and a scoring rubric as the instruments to collect the data. The experimental group was taught by using PBL with group works whereas the control group was taught by using individual guided problem-solving. The findings on the t-test conveyed that the null hypothesis is rejected. Hence, there is a significant difference in the mean score of the students in the experimental group and those in the control group. Moreover, the analysis of each component of writing revealed that the implementation of PBL gives a significant effect on the components of content and organization. Hence, small group discussion for problem-solving tasks is recommended to develop students’ critical thinking skills, social skills, and writing skills particularly in writing expository essays of problem-solution.

Telaah Kesalahan Penggunaan Kalimat Efektif pada Karangan Eksposisi Siswa Kelas V SDN Kebon Dalem

The skill of writing expository essays can be used as a medium to improve the use of good and appropriate language for elementary school students. This study describes errors in using effective sentences in exposition essays in the fifth grade of Kebon Dalem State Elementary School, which consists of using effective sentence structures, Subject-Verb-Object-Adverb form (SPOK) conjunctions, and punctuation marks. This study used a qualitative approach with a qualitative descriptive method. The subject of this research is the fifth grade of Kebon Dalem State Elementary School, with as many as seventeen students. The research instrument was used in the form of interviews and written documents in student expositions essays. The results showed that the student’s exposition essay writing was good because it was seen from the mistakes that students did not make. Disposition errors in the use of effective sentence as a whole: there are five higher errors in effective sentence structures, including SPOK, three higher errors in the use of conjunctions, and five higher errors in punctuation marks. The errors were assessed slightly because each student wrote three paragraphs and ten to twelve sentences. It shows that the types of mistakes in using effective sentences made by students in expository essays are still very diverse.

University practitioners’ critical reflections from the collaboritive model

This investigation aimed to report University practitioners' critical reflections generated from Gosling's third POT model to raise awareness of institutional authorities and educationalists on the importance of consolidating POT programs on a regular basis. This qualitative case study was conducted with a sample of fourteen instructors currently working in a Public University situated in the Ecuadorian highlands. This group of academic practitioners was divided into pairs so that seven subgroups resulted from this division. Each subgroup worked firstly on the collaborative model process, which contemplated observation forms; then, they executed critical reflections; this data was gathered in collaborative expository essays and encapsulated in this manuscript. The obtained results disclose a high proclivity towards ongoing professional development, said differently; there is a considerable desire on the part of our participants to cultivate a teaching evaluation philosophy on a rolling basis. In general, this study had a positive repercussion on those involved due to its substantial interchangeable reflections.