Effects Of The Infusion Of I-Think Maps On Low Proficiency Esl Students Writing Performance
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Date
2017-08
Authors
Sovakandan, Hemahdevi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The importance of thinking skills for writing is often neglected by teachers. In
the English language classroom practices, it can be used to help the students to
“think” of the contents before writing their essays. As such, this paper investigated
the effectiveness of i-Think Maps; mainly the Circle Map, Tree Map and Flow maps
for the development of overall written performance among 40 low proficiency
students. The students were taught on how to develop content in their narrative essay
using the three maps in combination based on selected three chapters from the Form
4 textbook. Qualitative and quantitative data involving pre and post-tests, focus
group interviews and classroom observations were analysed. The study used
MANOVA and paired t-tests to determine the significance of the intervention given
using the three i-Think Maps chosen. The MANOVA analyses revealed that there
were no statistically significant differences in the students' overall written
performance and their ability to develop content in writing between the experimental
and control groups. This is due to the very limited vocabulary in the English
language and the inability of the students to write grammatically accurate sentences.
However, the paired t-tests concluded that there was a statistically significant
difference within the experimental group that was given the intervention. The use of
i-Think Maps encouraged more participative writing task by students as shown by
the interviews.
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Keywords
The effectiveness of i-Think Maps , among low proficiency students.