Students’ Awareness and Perceptions towards “Pre-Writing Stage” as a Strategy in Writing Directed Essay

Abstract

Realizing the importance of writing strategies, there are numbers of researches conducted in figuring which of the proposed models is the most effective strategy in conducting writing tasks. In writing stages, one of the most basic and important stages is "pre-writing stage". Pre-writing stage is known for its efficiency in constructing a well-organized essay regardless of the types of essay questions. The purpose of this study is to explore students' perceptions towards pre-writing stage as a strategy in writing directed essay. Thirty students were selected from an academy known as Menara Gading which is located in Pahang, Malaysia. Based on the findings, it could be observed that students do use pre-writing stage but they are not aware that it is considered as a strategy in writing directed essay. This is because the students were not aware of the term used for the first few steps before writing was called "pre-writing stage". As far as the students' perception is concerned, it could be concluded that students have positive perception on the pre-writing strategy as the strategy helps them to be more confident in writing. In a nutshell, teachers should ensure that students are aware of the importance of "pre-writing stage" and conduct interesting pre-writing activities which are helpful, fun, time-saving and effective in order to enhance students' skills in writing.

Self-Assessment of Engineering Learners’ Perception of Usefulness of Pre-Writing Strategies

“…Very few studies examined the perceptions of learners towards pre-writing stage. Among them the studies of Yunus et al (2018) and Chien (2010) revealed that students strongly believe in the effective use of pre-writing strategies for the enhancement of writing skills, knowing students' perceptions and beliefs can play a crucial role in developing the right program to meet their needs, and created an awareness of their needs and ESL requirements.…”

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“…Writing skill is important because it is a tool to measure their knowledge (Kurniati, 2015). As we know, learners need to write for many purposes: tests, examinations, letters, emails, messages and many more (Kaur et al, 2017;Wening, 2016;Yunus et al, 2018). It is also written communication (Fareed et al, 2016).…”

“…In the era of technology, we socialize through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, just to name a few, which also require the use of writing skill (Kaur et al, 2017). The process of writing requires the writer to be able to brainstorm, organize ideas, review, edit and others (Almubark, 2016;Kurniati, 2015;Yunus et al, 2018) It is insufficient to have just a skilful teacher and by doing writing practices to master writing skill (Almubark, 2016). Teachers should plan well for an effective teaching and learning process together with the use of suitable media so that their students can improve on their writing skill (Asrifan, 2015;Fareed et al, 2016;Kaur et al, 2017;Nusrat, 2016;Sesrica & Jismulatif, 2017;Wening, 2016).…”

Application of Digital Mind Mapping (MINDOMO) in Improving Weak Students’ Narrative Writing Performance

“…Strategies and techniques were devised to teach narrative writing to the students successfully. Yunus et al (2018) listed free writing, brainstorming, questioning, listing, clustering and mapping as pre-writing strategies. Mind maps are generally used as a pre-writing strategy for generating and expanding ideas when writing an essay.…”