Teaching writing to elementary school students: an activity theory perspective

Abstract

Most of the existing studies on academic writing were conducted in ESL/EFL university settings. Further research targeted at other educational settings such as primary schools, for students in different stages of their studies, will advance our understanding of student writing broadly. The study aims to investigate the impact of writing instruction on students’ engagement, using the activity theory. Participants were five grade four teachers teaching English and their grade four Singaporean students in five classrooms in a local primary school. The observation data and field notes were coded, using Dȍrnyei’s (2007) qualitative data analysis scheme and NVivo. Findings show that preparing mediated tools, arranging division of labour in executing the tasks, setting rules and objects, and having communities that teachers involved in are crucial factors to consider in the activity system. Before discussing student activity system with their own objects/motive, it is important to understand what types of activity system the teachers bring to the writing classroom. Our study contributes knowledge to research on writing instruction and students’ engagement by analysing grade four writing lessons from an activity theory perspective. The findings may also be useful pedagogically for educators outside Asia.

Keywords:

• teaching writing
• elementary school
• activity theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Cheung Yin Ling earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Purdue University, USA. She is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She specialises in second language writing. She has published in journals such as System, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, and RELC Journal.

Hari Jang is a Research Assistant in the Office for Education Research at National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She earned her M.A in Applied Linguistics from NIE, NTU and wrote a thesis about the impacts of patterns of interaction on collaborative writing. Her research interests include second language writing and teachers’ situated professional development.

ORCID

Yin Ling Cheung http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6382-438X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Education [grant number OER 07/15 CYL].