Abstract:

Noticeably, most Malaysian teachers who teach English language subject are devoting their teaching agenda to assure students secure good grade for the subject. This situation has created an unwanted domino effect where teachers are keen to neglect the development of writing as they solely focus on how to indoctrinate students to score higher marks in essay writing in order to obtain a good grade for the subject. (Tan and Miller, 2007). Teachers religiously depend on model essays and teacher-led discussion in their classroom, wherefore, they depreciate collaborative learning and student-led discussion.

The overarching aim of this study is to incorporate process approach into English as Second Language (ESL) writing lessons amongst secondary school students (aged 16-17) in a suburban school in Malaysia. Although writing in an examination is solitary, studies found out that collaborative discussion amongst students creates (Hadjioannou and Townsend, 2015) numerous opportunity for learning remarkably in second language learning.

Initial data from the pre-test essays graded by trained examiners indicated that students obtained low mark for their argumentative essay writing. From the analysis of lesson plans and e-mail interview with the teacher, it is proved that product approach dominates the entire writing lessons. As a result, students’ writing rarely involve the development of opinions, arguments, and critical thinking when they write an argumentative essay. Consequently, the notion of this study is that participation in authentic argumentative discussion amongst peers prior to individual writing may improve the written product as the impact from the peer scaffolding during the process.

In order to incorporate process approach into students’ discussion, it is worth to explore student-led online discussion using Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) and investigate its impact on individual written argument so that an online intervention tool which is rich in the discussion can be designed thus would help future ESL students write better essays.

Keywords:

Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL), English as Second Language (ESL), secondary school students.