STUDENTS’ COMPETENCE IN COMPOSITION WRITING: BASIS FOR A PROPOSED INTERVENTION STRATEGY PLAN

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the students' competence in writing English compositions in terms of their content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics components; their strengths and weaknesses in writing; intervention strategy plan that could be proposed; and the implications of the findings to the teaching of English writing. To find out their writing competence along with the five components, the students were asked to write descriptive essays that were rated independently by three English teachers using the ESL Composition Profile designed by Jacobs et. al. (1981). 

                The descriptive quantitative-qualitative research design was used to obtain pertinent data. A case study was conducted to get the desired qualitative data that supplemented and strengthened the statistical data gathered. The results of the study revealed that majority of the students were described as 'good to average' in terms of their descriptive essay content; 'excellent to 'very good' in organization; 'good to average' in vocabulary; 'excellent to very good' in language use; and ‘good to average’ in mechanics.

                However, calculation of the average mean scores and standard deviation in the five components of the students' writings indicated that the strengths of most of the students were in the 'organization' and 'language use' (grammar), whereas their weaknesses were in 'content development', 'vocabulary' and 'mechanics'. The case study likewise suggested similar results.                 Using the data as a basis, an intervention strategy plan to enhance students' writing competence along the five components was proposed and designed for classroom application. 

                Some strategies included to enhance students' language use and organization of ideas was peer editing, selective peer editing/proofreading with highlighting of errors, using graphic organizers, and essay diagramming. To enhance their content development, vocabulary, and mechanics components in writing, strategies such as adding details to complete an essay, providing Four Bases checklist, giving ample time for prewriting, facilitating collaborative writing, using word learning reinforcement, showing good writing models, using semantic feature analysis and paired word questions, preparing punctuation marks worksheets, conducting student-teacher conferences, and using authentic texts were included in the intervention plan.

                The findings implied that English teachers should be given adequate training and should attend seminar-workshops in ESL writing pedagogy for them to have an in-depth knowledge of the complexities involved in the writing process and learn more intervention strategies that they could apply in the classroom to help students improve their writing in English with less effort, and the results of this study may be used as inputs to curriculum development and the implementation of intervention strategies in English composition writing.