The uses of "writing creatively" in the teaching of English as a foreign language to primary level school children in the Lebanon

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Ghannage, R.E.K., 2000. The uses of "writing creatively" in the teaching of English as a foreign language to primary level school children in the Lebanon. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how 'writing creatively", which had not been given adequate attention in the Lebanese primary classes, could be developed to help the students in these classes communicate better in the English language. Writing creatively in this study was considered as a process in which students could have the chance to explore the different writing genres and communicate meaning through a set of skills which involved training, instruction, practice, experience, and purpose. Stimulation of children's creative potential while writing in a foreign language was mainly to help them communicate to their readers both their feelings and the information they were planning to convey.

To investigate the influence of writing creatively on learning the English language, this study was conducted in three different Lebanese schools that could exemplify similar issues across the different social and language backgrounds. 460 eight-, nine- and ten-year-old students participated in this study. The students were randomly divided into two groups (experimental and control) and both groups sat pre- and post-tests. The aim of these tests was to compare the results of the experimental and the control group and to check how writing creatively might affect learning of EFL.

For thirty weeks, two periods a week, workshops for the experimental groups were held, allowing these students to explore how activities and techniques that lead to writing creatively might affect their language learning. While these activities and techniques were practised on the experimental group, 'normal' activities and techniques were continued with the control group.

To analyze the data collected, quantitative and qualitative measurements were considered. The quantitative measurement was deduced from the results of the pre- and post-tests and the statistical analysis of the writing checklists. On the other hand, the qualitative measurement was deduced from the analysis of samples of the students' written work produced during the writing workshops.

In light of the results reported in this study, the difference in scores between the control group and the experimental group and the analysis of samples of students' writings did indeed conform to the expectations that writing creatively as a process could be applied to help Lebanese primary-school students gain fluency as well as accuracy while communicating in the language. Based on the results, it is concluded that the application of the creative writing process could affect the learning of listening/comprehension, reading/comprehension, guided writing, grammar, and spelling as well as the quality of writing in different genres.

Item Type:

Thesis

Creators:

Ghannage, R.E.K.

Date:

2000

ISBN:

9781369316551

Identifiers: