The Use of Descriptors with Exemplar and Model Answers to Improve Quality of Students’ Narrative Writing in English French and Arabic

Abstract

The importance of writing skills in enhancing student performance in language exams and even other subject areas is widely acknowledged. At Jaffery secondary, the approach to the teaching of writing has generally been to use of three approaches: product based approach with focus on what the students composed, process based approach that is focused on the step by step process of writing, and a genre based approach that addressed the requirements of the “O” level IGCSE Curriculum. With the unavailing of the School Development Plan in late 2012 which gave attention to among other things improvements to the learning framework, the department of languages made it a priority to improve the quality of students’ writing (and by extension performance). In a bid to enhance writing skills, we have embarked on a quest that has raised certain questions: How could methods of teaching writing be made more effective? Could learners’ awareness of assessment descriptors improve the quality of their writing? would a combination of genre and product based teaching i.e. combining instructions on how to produce ideal  writing (descriptors) with the examples of ideal writing (exemplars) help improve the quality of student writing? These questions formed a basis for the search of an improved method of teaching writing. This paper explores the use of exemplars alongside descriptors as part of a mixed approach to teaching and learning writing, and provides evaluation of narrative essays and feedback of questionnaires administrated to year 10 students who constitute the study sample. The questionnaires required the students to comment on their preference of the different learning approaches. Specifically, the study focused on the teaching of narrative writing in French, Arabic and English. This approach reinforces the findings of Sadler R.D. (1989) who wrote on the value of using exemplars as a means of showing what quality is. The study suggests that a mixed approach that combines descriptors with exemplars could provide an effective way forward for the teaching and learning of written compositions.