Process-Based Writing Approach: A Panacea to Improve Thai Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) Learners’ Writing Skill and to Eradicate Writing Block

Abstract

The role of a process-based approach to writing has been increasingly recognized as a writing pedagogy in aiding learners to write compositions in higher education context. However, there is yet a growing interest in implementing this writing pedagogy to eradicate students’ writing block, and it requires more research. The overarching aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of process-based writing instruction on Thai Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) students’ writing performance. Additionally, the present study aimed to eradicate students’ writing block. An explanatory, sequential mixed method type of research was employed in the study using a pre-and post-test design. A single group of 28 first-year students of TCFL was purposively chosen as participants and underwent 10 sessions of implementing the process-based writing approach to facilitate their writing tasks. Quantitative results revealed a significant difference on participants’ pre-test (x̄ =8.93) and post-test (x̄ =14.04) writing performance in terms of writing components such as organization, content, lexical resource, logical connections, and the use of Chinese language characters. Regarding the participants’ quiz results, the most improved writing component was on “content”, whilst “logical connection” was the least improved one. Furthermore, when analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed, significant differences between one quiz score to those of the other quizzes were revealed. The qualitative findings suggested that the participants had positively welcomed the use of process-based writing approach to facilitate their writing tasks and to eliminate writing block. Thus, as the students’ writing performance increases, they are most likely to manage eradicating writing block. Finally, it is concluded that process-based writing approach is a helpful pedagogical approach that assisted students to not only enhance their writing performance but enable them to manage to prevent writing block. It is recommended therefore that a process-based writing approach should be used as an agentive pedagogical approach in TCFL writing classroom.