Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing Pedagogy: An Action Research

Abstract

Writing is an essential human communication which has, however, proved to be complicated and difficult and school pupils’ written discourse is usually below the required levels. This action research was carried out at Solusi High School in Zimbabwe using 2013 form three pupils as participants of the study. Two composition approaches, namely the Product Focused Approach and the Process Oriented Approach were administered unto the participants who wrote two sets of compositions (products of the approaches); these were marked and analyzed by means of descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that application of the Process Oriented Approach as a composition instructional pedagogy has shown better composition quality when compared to the Product Focused Approach. It was also discovered that learners could generally write meaningful compositions and the majority were likely to pass their “O” level examinations regardless of the approach used in composition writing.  This is because other factors, other than the teaching approach, also affect composition writing output.