Journal of Education and Human Development

Writing Needs and Strategies of FELDA Primary ESL Pupils
Dr. Melor Md. Yunus, Siti Sukainah Che Mat

Abstract
Two of the challenges faced by teachers in the primary schools in Malaysia are to improve the English proficiency level and to prepare pupils for the upcoming School Certificate Examination (UPSR). Pupils have been taught certain ways to answer the questions but all efforts prove to no avail as reports came out suggest that pupils’ compositions for Paper 2 are weak and they have yet to master the writing skills. The fact that pupils failed to produce a short paragraph of intelligible writing comes by no surprise as pupils are often being spoon-fed with the information they hardly digest on their own. This study investigates the needs and writing strategies among primary FELDA ESL pupils, where the data collected serves as a guide for the development of an English learning module. Sixty two respondents, of eleven and twelve years old took part in this study. Data was collected via a survey and was analyzed statistically. Findings suggest that pupils are interested to learn English, aware of the importance of English and use various writing strategies. The use of writing strategies differ between boys and girls and when an independent sample t-test was run, there is a significant variance between the selection of writing strategies used by girls and boys. In terms of the preferences for an English learning module, pupils preferred the learning module to be in the medium of book, Malay as the language of instruction and writing as the main skill taught.

Full Text: PDF