DEVELOPING WRITING SKILL THROUGH VIDEOS IN MIXED ABILITY CLASSES

ABSTRACT

The application of innovative technologies, particularly videos, in language teaching has become a significant option for a more efficient and interactive approach. However, few studies have investigated the use of videos in the teaching of writing in mixed ability classes. The present study investigates the use of videos in improving writing skill in mixed ability classes and examines the effectiveness of the use of videos in the teaching of writing by observing students’ writing in the classroom.

АННОТАЦИЯ

Применение инновационных технологий, в частности видео, в обучении языку стало важным вариантом для более эффективного и интерактивного подхода. Тем не менее, несколько исследований изучали использование видео в обучении письму в классах со смешанными способностями. В настоящем исследовании исследуется использование видео для улучшения навыков письма в классах со смешанными способностями и изучается эффективность использования видео в обучении письму путем наблюдения за письмом учащихся в классе.

Keywords: English language, ESL classroom, video, teaching writing.

Ключевые слова: английский язык, английский класс, видео, обучение письму.

Introduction. Video is widely believed to have a great impact in teaching process, especially in teaching writing. Video provides the opportunity for the students to develop learning technique to produce the maximum result in teaching writing. The implementation of videos in mixed ability classes helps students to absorb the knowledge faster than using text books. Hence, it is important for teachers to be able to implement videos in mixed ability classes to give as much information as possible beyond writing skill.

Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the use of video in the teaching of writing in mixed ability classes. Particularly, the study examines writing practices and video commonly utilized by ESL teachers to teach writing skills in ESL classrooms in secondary schools. Advances in technology in education are inevitable as technology has become an integral part of our everyday life. The new generations of students have a high level of technology literacy. Hence, it is important to investigate the teachers’ perception on the use of innovative technology, specifically video, in the teaching of writing classrooms as information regarding the benefits, implementation, and attitudes of teachers will be a further probe.

Literature review. As the topic of the research is devoted to the use of videos to improve students’ writing skill in mixed ability classes, it is necessary to provide definitions of writing as well as videos suggested by scholars. They are as follows:

Brown claims that by reading and studying a variety of relevant types of texts, students can gain important insight both about how they should write and about the subject. It means that the students have to know what kinds of texts they should write and understand how to construct them in a good way.

As Zhang and Chen state that the writer should be able to use grammar, vocabulary, conception, rhetoric, and others elements. In this case, grammar takes an essential part in writing since language is constructed by grammar. It means that we have to be able to produce sentences that are grammatically correct.

Stempleski and Tomalin imply that the use of video can provide background information and proper stimuli for subsequent reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities. In addition, it can be a good alternative, offers the flexibility and can stimulate oral and written communication among the students.

Chau points out that video can motivate and help students to use the language naturally in their own lives by seeing how the characters succeed in communicating with native speakers and getting things done in their daily activities.

On the basis of the theories given by scholars, the implementation of videos in classes to improve students’ writing skills will be conducted and the results will be analyzed.

Research methods. In conducting the research, research design plays an important role in obtaining the data. It is the way information gained from the subjects. In this matter, the writer used descriptive qualitative study as the research design. This design focuses on understanding and meaning through verbal narratives and observations rather than through numbers. Therefore, the result of the research is in the form of description and interpretation of some phenomena that exist during the research. The subjects of the study were the students of mixed ability classes that the English ability of the students is on the average.

The data was collected through non-participant observation. It was an observation in which the writer only observed the process of teaching and learning. To obtain the data related to the use of video in teaching writing, students’ writing was taken to investigate their writing ability since the use of video was expected to help students to create a text based on structure and language feature.

Analysis and result. From the observation of students in mixed ability class, the result showed that video as teaching media in teaching writing in mixed ability classes could be used to improve students’ writing ability in this research. It showed that video made the students more interested in the learning process than using textbooks. Also, using video gave opportunities for students to increase their writing skill which activities make them active in teaching-learning process.

Practically, the use of videos helped the students to focus on a certain topic so they could be more easily to generate and organize paragraph. The symbolic codes, language images and literacy in the videos made the students easy in selecting the appropriate words with correct spelling. Besides, videos gave them stimulus and idea so that they were more active and could write with detail information as presented in the video. They could see the acts and listen to the language from video so they could write down based on what they have seen and heard into the paper. Therefore, using videos in ESL classrooms is believed as one of the most effective ways of developing students’ writing skill.

Conclusion The objective of this research is to find out the effect of using video on students’ writing achievement. In relation to the result of the study, it was concluded that video as teaching media gave a positive effect on students’ writing achievement in aspects of writing: content, organization, vocabulary, and grammar. The findings indicated that the students have strong attention to the use of video in the class. In addition, they also have good attitude toward writing process using video if teachers can provide suitable and enjoyable materials for them. It can be interpreted that the students do not have any problem with writing skill learning in the classroom using video. Therefore, there is no doubt that video plays an important role in helping teachers to improve students’ writing skills. Significantly, the findings of this study provide evidence to improve the application of videos in language teaching and learning.

References:

1. Bramer, G. R. & Sedley, D. (1981). Writing for Readers. Ohio: Merill Publishing Co.
2. Brown, H. (1994). Teaching by Principle: An interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
3. Stempleski, S. & Barry, T. (1990). Video In Action: Recipes for Using Video in Language Teaching. London: Prentice Hall, Inc.
4. Zang, X. &Chen Shin Jin. (1989). Techniques to teach Writing. English Teaching Forum