A study on developing a pattern-based English writing model in the elementary school
This study aims to develop an English writing model using pattern-based reading materials and to apply it to the elementary classroom. The meaning of “patterns” was searched for in the language learning and teaching methods, and their roles were examined in terms of language acquisition and learning. The writing class was connected to the reading class so that learners could properly model and transfer their forms and meanings of the patterns recognized in the reading class to what they want to write in the writing class. The experiment was conducted on one class of grade 6 elementary school students in which the reading and writing class was integrated into the regular English class during one semester. Six pattern-based reading materials were selected with a range of genres including stories and poems. The effect of the pattern-based reading materials on the writing class was examined through writing test and a questionnaire about the affective domain before and after the experiment. The result showed that writing scores were increased significantly in all the leveled-group learners. As for the affective domain, interest, participation, confidence, and adventure each had a significantly increased score. The sense of adventure increased the most. This is considered attributable to the feedback which ignored grammatically trivial errors and focused on how to properly express the contents learners wanted to write.