Enhancing ESL writing using sentence variety checklist
One of the students’ problems in writing is lack of variety in sentence structure. Students seem to learn one basic pattern of subject, verb, and object and stick to it. They may also lack knowledge and practice of the different structures, and connecting words, necessary to create sentence vari...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/38771/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/38771/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/38771/1/LIZA_ABDULLAH.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/38771/4/ILC2014_Parallel_Sessions_mdm_liza.pdf |
| Summary: | One of the students’ problems in writing is lack of variety in sentence structure. Students seem to learn
one basic pattern of subject, verb, and object and stick to it. They may also lack knowledge and practice
of the different structures, and connecting words, necessary to create sentence variety. Although this is a
fundamental problem in student writing, little emphasis has been put on it in the ESL Writing class
because oftentimes teachers and students think that as long as there are no grammatical errors in writing,
it is “okay.” Therefore, even if students do show some improvement, most of them have not really
achieved more desired marks in their writing assessments. Hence, this classroom research intended to
examine the respondents’ writing performance before and after using a sentence variety checklist adapted
from Langan (1993) and to analyze respondents’ perceptions towards using the sentence variety checklist
in their writing. A total of 20 university students in an intensive English language program participated in
the study. Data for the study were collected based on students’ essays and responses from a 20-item
survey questionnaire. The results revealed slight increase in students’ writing performance in generating
complex as compared to simple and compound sentences. In addition, most students found the checklist
made writing more interesting and urged them to become more aware of what they were writing. In
conclusion, the usage of sentence variety checklist can be one of the tools for ESL students to ‘add more
colors’ into their writing.
Keywords: ESL writing, sentence variety checklist, sentence structures, sentence combining |
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