Improving English Writing Skill: A Case of Problem Based Learning

Ghulam Dastgeer¹ and Dr. Muhammad Tanveer Afzal^1,

¹Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan

Cite this paper:
Ghulam Dastgeer and Dr. Muhammad Tanveer Afzal. Improving English Writing Skill: A Case of Problem Based Learning. American Journal of Educational Research. 2015; 3(10):1315-1319. doi: 10.12691/education-3-10-17

Abstract

English has been recognized as important language in Pakistan like many other counties of the world and used for academic, research, communication, business and official purposes. It has been taught as compulsory subject up to graduation level. The students at all levels and especially secondary level try to have competency in English language skills particularly writing skill; being more important as used for evaluation of their academic achievements. But they feel difficulty to acquire competency because of many reasons; the conventional teaching method being used as one of the causes. New pedagogical methods like Problem Based Learning need to be experimented in Pakistani situations as it has been proved a successful pedagogy in many contexts around the world [8]. PBL as pedagogy is a teaching-learning method where students work in learner-centered classroom environment in small groups of 4-5 confronting the authentic problems given by the teacher and find their solutions by discussing among themselves generally in three class meetings. They work more at home by studying and searching for the solutions. The present study was an attempt to experiment PBL learning of English writing skill through English essay writing on secondary level students at IMCBIP (Islamabad Model College for Boys, Sector G-7/4 Islamabad, Pakistan) and to see effectiveness of PBL in comparison of that of conventional lecture method. The study was conducted by using pretest-posttest control group experimental design with the subjects (20+20 experimental & control groups) and data were analyzed by employing t-test and descriptive statistics. The findings showed that PBL was more effective pedagogy than conventional lecture method for improving English writing skill of secondary level students.

Keywords:
problem based learning student centered classroom authentic problems english writing skill essay writing

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