Exploratory Action Research on Descriptive Writing

Exploratory research topic

To develop the descriptive writing skills among my pupils.

Research questions:

1. How to develop descriptive writing, among my students?

2.Unlike mother tongue, why can't my pupils express their ideas coherently and precisely in English based on the imagination?

3. Do other teachers too have tried with this task?  If yes, what strategies have they used to develop the descriptive writing skills?

4. What students need to train themselves in descriptive writing?

5. As a teacher of English language, how can I help my students to develop the descriptive writing skills?

Objectives:

1. Pupils should be able to understand what to describe, why to describe as well as how to describe.

2. They should be able to understand that description should be so realistic that readers can feel it.

3. I want to involve my students in writing and enhance their imagination and strengthen their sensory skills engage them in reading and writing.

The need for developing descriptive writing skills:

1. It helps in writing paragraphs and essays in a detailed and structured manner.

2. It helps to hold the reader for your writing work.

3. It enhances our vocabulary.

4. Minute details are observed and put down in paper, so increases one's observation skills.

5. Last but not the least, it enhances their imagination and creativity.

What is descriptive writing?

 Descriptive writing is a type of writing that gives a clear and concise description of everything. It includes places, people, object or an event.

Primary objective of descriptive writing is to provide a clear picture of the place people or thing in the reader's mind. The reader will use sensory details when he or she reads the text through senses like seeing, hearing, smell taste and touch. This form of writing will help the readers  into the world of the writer. 

Context:

For my research topic I had selected twenty students of class  7 and 8, as I wanted to grow power of imagination and expression among my young learners and from then onwards creating a writing  passion in them.

Data collection process:

Phase 1:

As a part of data collection, first I contacted my students and asked them to write few sentences about their visit to mall. This was thier pre-test. Only ten of them replied but that was not well organized . So, for that reason I referred few books from the library as well as browsed some articles and then came to the conclusion that , if I give some key questions, my students can form  small paragraphs and I experimented the same on them . Now, the response was bit improved but still my students failed too form a paragraph. And again I asked them  to write the same sentences in two paragraphs and only five of them could manage to do that well.

Meanwhile I asked my fellow trainees and teachers about their experience in this regard. They were of the opinion that our students can say  many things but they cannot write down, as they fear about spellings and grammar.

After coming back from the training, for two days, I engaged my students in various topics related to descriptive writing and asked them to write plenty of paragraphs based on their imagination.

I even supplied them with few sample descriptive passages and gave them oral picture of many incidents as well as topics. To my surprise my students found it very interesting but they could not write like that.

Now I thought of giving a questionnaire to the students to know their problems in writing in English. With the findings from the questionnaire, I came to the conclusion that,  they can write in their mother tongue  but not in English. The reason, they gave was that  they lacked vocabulary and the difficulty in sentence formation.

 Hence, to sum their opinion,  to write a descriptive paragraph ,definitely we need a good amount of  descriptive vocabulary, that too collection of word bank related to adverbs as well as adjectives.

Phase 2:

As a second part of my data collection, I created a Google form and shared it with the teachers and collected  information about their opinion and stand,  on descriptive writing skills among the learners.

As for the collective response, they opined that, ESL students lacked proper environment to think and imagine in English .Even the teachers said that they are literally giving simple topics to the students and even allowing  the students to read the picture and describe it in their own words. But still the students are just trying to write what they see what they understand, they don't write what they imagine and feel.

Few suggestions and responces from the teachers to improve the descriptive  writing skill of our learners are as follows:

Data analysis and conclusions:

After analysing the data I came to the conclusion that

1. Our children can imagine in mother tongue.  They can express it freely in mother tongue but find it difficult to express in English.

2. Children lacked vocabulary to express their imagination in English.

Children even have the fear of making spelling and grammatical mistakes which hinders them to write freely in English.

3. My children though interested, hesitate to write in English.

4. Facilitators always facilitate the learners with multiple varieties of topics and situations.

5. Language games especially vocabulary and sentence games, knowledge of adjectives as well as adverbs will enhance the children's imaginatory skill in English and they can freely write in English without any hesitation.

6. Descriptive writing skill is  somewhat a complex writing skill which needs continuous guidance and practice.

7. This is not a one day practice but it's a  life-long process for any learner including me.

8. One need to explore more and more.

My experience of exploratory research:

After researching for nearly 2 months amidst lockdown, I learnt a lot.

As this is the first exploratory research for me, definitely I had no idea of carrying out the research.

But, my mentor Dr Ravi Narayan Chakrakodi, helped me by giving positive instructions.

I came to know the systematic process of   conducting exploratory research and even I came to know various action plans and exploratory action research taken by other teacher researchers.

I can carry out some of these things in my teaching career and strengthen my students in all the core skills of English language.

I could bridge a gap in learning I created interest in writing and even I could make use of collaborative teaching techniques.

  Multilingualism is a biggest drawback for our students. But I know one day , for sure they will come over this difficulty in their life.

 Definitely, I am not going to stop here. I would like to explore more on different areas, so that, I can enhance my students to think and imagine as well as express freely in English without any hesitation. 

Thanks for the opportunity..