An Effective Way to Teach Writing in Second Language Education

Abstract

Several studies have shown that the competence level of writing in secondary schools is lower than it should be. Studies have shown that teaching intervention methods helps students to become more competent writers in their native language. A small test case study has been performed by this researcher to see if this is the case in second language education as well. For this purpose two first-year English classes were selected from a Dutch secondary school to participate in the research. These two classes consisted of a control group and an experimental class, consisting of 29 and 28 students respectively. Students of both classes achieved similar scores on previous writing tests. The experimental class was therefore chosen based on a 0.2 lower mean score in the overall subject. The experiment involved a series of three lessons consisting of strategy instruction, in particular the DODO method, and ended with a diagnostic test for both classes. Although results did show an improvement in grade, the control class had a higher grade improvement overall.