Author: Bui Phu Hung, Le Thi Van
Abstract:Pre-writing stage has been considered very significant as it enhances writing performance in that learners can have discussions with the teacher and/or their peers. They can also outline and organize their ideas individually to prepare themselves for writing. This study investigated the effects of using pictures and interactions in the pre-writing stage. A cross-intervention research design was implemented on two experimental groups exposed to either strategy. The data were collected from 8 tests on writing performance, 21 questionnaires and 6 case-study interviews. The findings showed that there was no big difference in the development and organization of ideas between the two groups’ writing performances. In fact, the participants’ writing performance depended on the assigned topics and required subskills. In detail, depicting was found to assist generating ideas, but outlining was found useful in helping organizing ideas. Regarding the participants’ preferences, nearly half of the participants preferred outlining and slightly over one third preferred depicting. A small number liked both strategies equally. An implication from this study is that the choice of prewriting strategy should depend on the target skill: form (organization) or fluency (idea generation).
Keywords: writing performance, pre-writing strategy, pictorial representation, outlining, learning, learner
