The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program on Developing the EFL Al-Azhar Secondary Students'' Writing Skills by Ismail Ibrahim Elshirbini Abdel-Fattah El-Ashri, Egypt

IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program on Developing the EFL Al-Azhar Secondary Students' Writing Skills Ismail Ibrahim Elshirbini Abdel-Fattah El-Ashri Al-Azhar, Egypt Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of the Post-Process Writing Approach on developing the required writing skills in English for first year secondary institutes in Al-Azhar Reviewing teaching writing books, literature and related studies, the researcher came up with the most suitable writing skills for the first year secondary institute students and stated them in a checklist Accordingly a proposed writing program, based on the Post-Process Writing Approach, was designed to develop those skills The proposed program was composed of four units including some writing activities The suggested Post-Process strategy appropriate to those activities was used in the program To carry out the experiment of the study, a sample of 60 first year secondary institute students, was randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control one, (30) students each A Pre Writing test, designed by the researcher, was administered to both the experimental and the control groups to determine the students' level prior to the experiment Having been sure that both groups were of the same level, the experiment of the study was carried out Then, the pre-test was administered again to both groups after the experiment Comparing the students' mean scores in the pre and post administrations of the test, it was proved that the experimental group students made a remarkable progress in their writing skills due to the use of the suggested program based on The Post-Process Writing Approach Thus, using The Post-Process Writing Approach proved to have a large effect size on developing the required writing skills in English for the secondary institute students Keywords: Writing skills, Writing accuracy, Writing approaches, Process approach, Post process approach, Educational programs International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 167 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail Introduction and background 1.1 The Post-Process approach Writing is a means of communication that makes human beings uniquely different from other animals Throw writing people express their feelings and thoughts Morerecently, some researchers have presented the Post-Process approach for (ESL) (EFL) writing (Atkinson, 2003: Matsuda, 2003) which adds more social dimensions to writers (Fujieda, 2006, p: 68) White Trimbur was the first to put a name to the PostProcess approach by the mid 1990s The term "post-process" arose in composition studies during the early 1990s and quickly became one of the important keywords, shaping the development of an intellectual current in the field 1.2 Steps / stages of writing in light of the Post-Process writing approach 1.2.1 Pre-writing stage Shafer (2003) argues that facing a blank page is perhaps the most intimidating/ frightening part of writing With a flurry of ideas blowing chaotically in our heads, it is amazing that anything ever gets written The key, to starting the writing process and avoiding what has become known as writer’s block is to remember that writing, is very much like planting seeds Each time we write paragraphs, we lay down another set of ideas that help us to generate other ideas 1.2.2 Pre-writing activities A- Invention activities There are many activities that can be employed in order to come up with good ideas and gain inspiration in the pre writing stage such as: Interviewing, Reading, Discussion, Brain storming, Questioning, Summarizing etc B- Arrangement activities Graphic organizers Visual thinking can be expressed in many ways Graphic organizers are many ways for visual thinkers to arrange their ideas There are unlimited ways to express these visual ideas Graphic organizers have many names including visual maps, mind mapping, and visual organizers Graphic organizers can be used in all phases of learning from brainstorming ideas to presenting findings They can be used individually or in large groups International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 168 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail Post-writing Presenting Students, in groups, write their topics on large posters, hang them on the wall and present their writings in front of their students Commenting After presenting, the other groups who were listening comment on the topics of writing exchanging information and sharing opinions Decision making After commenting, students can make a final decision concerning the topic they are writing on Problem solving After making a final decision, the students can solve the problem they are writing on Figure: A model for the sequence of tasks in each lesson in light of the principles of the Post-Process Searching and Reading Reviewing Feedback Discussing , debating Editing planning and mind mapping Feedback Spider map Collaborative Presenting, commenting, decision making and Writing problem solving Used to describe the steps and activities of writing in light of the principals of the post-process writing approach: Moreover, a detailed teaching strategy for task based instruction was suggested The strategy is composed of stages: Stage Students of each group are asked to search about the subject they are going to write about either in the library or using the Internet and collect information about it Stage Students in groups discuss these information and exchange the ideas during the writing process Stage The students in each group practice the pre-writing activities such as searching , interviewing , reading , questioning , discussing , Brainstorming , Planning and mindmapping concerning the subject they are going to write about Stage International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 169 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail Students, in groups, collaborate, share ideas and make a draft of the subject of writing Stage Students ask help and feedback from their peers inside the group or from the other groups and from the teacher and share ideas to revise their drafts Stage Students, in groups, co-operate to check their writing They check spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, punctuation mistakes and subject-verb agreement mistakes to edit their writing Stage Poster presentation Each group representative presents what they have written on a large poster expressing their ideas and opinions about the subject in front of the class The other groups listen and comment on what is presented in front of them sharing the ideas and exchanging information using a checklist (handout) 1.3 Statement of the Problem The problem of the present study is manifested in first year secondary institute students' weakness in writing skills 1.4 Research questions The research included the following questions: 1- What are the English language functional writing skills necessary for first year secondary institute students in Al Azhar? 2- What are the features of a proposed program based on the Post-Process Writing Approach in developing the English language functional writing skills for the first year secondary institute students in Al Azhar? 3-What is the effect of the Post-Process Writing Approach on developing the functional writing skills for the first year secondary institute students in Al-Azhar? 1.5 Hypotheses The present study verified the following hypotheses: 1- There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group exposed to the suggested post-process-based instruction International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 170 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail program, and the control group receiving regular instruction on the post test in overall writing proficiency in favor of the experimental group 2- There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group students and the control group students on the post test in each writing skill in favor of the experimental group 3- There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group on the writing pre-test and post-test in overall writing skills in favor of the post-test scores 1- There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group on the writing pre-test and post-test in each writing skill (content, organization, fluency and accuracy) in favor of the post-test scores 1.6Aims of the Study The present study aimed at: 1- Developing the functional writing skills of EFL first year secondary institute students in Al-Azhar 2- Investigating the effect of using The Post-Process writing approach in developing the functional writing skills of EFL first year secondary institute students 1.7 Significance of the Study It is hoped that the present study contributes to: 1- Draw the attention of the teachers of English to the importance of teaching functional writing skills for first year secondary institute students 2- Draw the attention of the teachers of English and the decision makers of the importance of using The Post-Process writing approach in developing the functional writing skills of EFL first year secondary institute students of AlAzhar 3- Provide the teachers of English with a list of some activities necessary for developing the functional writing skills of first year secondary institute students of Al-Azhar 1.8 Limitations of the study The present study was limited to: 1- Two classes of first year secondary students at Alazhr institutes International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 171 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail 3- Functional writing skills of secondary stage students Methodology of the study 2.1 Sample of the study A group of 60 first - year secondary institute students of two classes from two institutes was randomly selected from Satamooni secondary institute for girls in Satamooni village and Mansoura secondary institute for girls, Dakhilyia Governorate, in the first semester of the school year 2012 / 2013 The two classes were randomly assigned to two groups; experimental (the class of Mansoura secondary institute for girls) and control (the class of Satamooni secondary institute for girls in Satamooni village) The number of the students in each of the two classes was 30 students 2.2 Instruments of the study The following instruments were developed by the researcher: 1- A writing checklist required for first year secondary institute students of AlAzhar 2- A writing performance test (pre and post) (By the researcher) 2.3 Design of the study The study adopted the quasi-experimental design 2.4 Procedures of the study 1- Reviewing literature to specify the required functional writing skills for the target students 2- Preparing a functional writing skills checklist 3- Presenting the functional writing skills checklist to a group of jurors for validation 4- Constructing a pre- post writing performance test 5- Presenting the pre-post writing performance test to a group of jurors for validation 6-Constructing the suggested program based on The Post-Process writing Approach which consisted of : (a) A teacher's guide about how to apply The Post-Process writing Approach in developing the functional writing skills (b) Students' book (c) Handouts International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 172 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail 7- Administering the performance writing test as a pretest for the two groups (experimental and control) to measure the students' performance in writing 8- Implementing the suggested program based on The Post-Process writing Approach on the experimental group while the control group studied using the traditional method 9- Administering the post-performance writing test for the two groups (experimental and control), the same form of the pretest, as a post test to measure the students' performance in writing 10- Analyzing data statistically 11- Reaching conclusions and providing recommendations 2.5 Method Design of the Study In the present study, two classes were randomly chosen to present the experimental and the control groups The experimental group used the suggested functional writing program, based on The Post-Process Writing Approach, to develop the functional writing skills while the control group received regular instruction A pre -( test was administered to the two groups before and after the experiment The pre administration of the test was to prove that the control and the experimental groups were of equal level prior to implementing the suggested program 2.6 Subjects of the study A group of 60 first - year secondary institute students of two classes from two institutes was randomly selected from Satamooni secondary institute for girls in Satamooni village and Mansoura secondary institute for girls, Dakhilyia Governorate, in the first semester of the school year 2012 / 2013 The two classes were randomly assigned to two groups; experimental (the class of Mansoura secondary institute for girls) and control (the class of Satamooni secondary institute for girls in Satamooni village) The number of the students in each of the two classes was 30 students - The pre- administration of the functional writing skills test aimed at being sure that the two groups (the experimental and the control) were equal in the functional writing skills performance before teaching The pre-administration was on the first of October 2012 The papers were corrected using the correction rules determined previously by the researcher Results were statistically analyzed using ''t'' test as indicated in the following table: International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 173 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail Table: 1''t'' value and its significance for the difference between the mean scores of the two groups: the experimental and the control in the pre-administration of the functional writing skills test Groups (No) The mean (M) Standard deviation S D Control 30 24.77 16.49 Experimental 30 32.37 12.94 "t" value Sig sig at Paired Tabled 1.95 2.66 (0.01) (sig) the difference between the two scores There is no statistically difference - The above table No (1) shows that: - The level of achievement in the functional writing test was equal as there was mean scores no of statistically the two significant groups on the difference pre- between administration of the the functional writing test 2.7 Duration of the Experiment The experiment lasted for nearly three months, almost twelve weeks in the first term of the school year 2012/2013 to investigate the effect of using the Post-Process Writing Approach on developing the required functional writing skills for the secondary school institute students in Al-Azhar Al-Shareef 2.8 Tools of the study The present study used two main tools: A- The writing skills' checklist B- The pre -post writing test A-The Writing Skills' Checklist: Purpose of the Checklist: The writing checklist aimed at determining the most important functional writing skills to be developed for first year secondary students at Al-Azhar institutes B-The Pre - Post Writing Test Purpose of the Test: The pre- administration of the test was used to make sure that the students of both the experimental and the control groups were of the same functional writing level prior to the experiment Therefore, the progress achieved by the experimental group could be attributed to the suggested writing program, based on the Post-Process writing International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 174 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail approach, to which they were exposed As for the post administration of the test, it was used to investigate the effect of the suggested program on developing the selected functional writing skills in general and on each of the four categories of skills in particular (content, organization, language fluency and language accuracy) Piloting the Test: The pilot study of the test aimed at timing the test, determining the difficulty of the questions included in the test and determining item analysis results including item difficulty and item discrimination Subjects of the pilot study: Thirty students other than the subjects of the experimental or control groups were selected for the pilot study They were selected randomly from one class in Satamooni secondary institute for girls, Dakhilyia Governorate Test time: It was estimated that a period of sixty minutes would provide ample time for students to complete the test The time was estimated in the following way: The time taken by the + the time taken by the Fastest student slowest student ‫ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬ 45 + 75 = 120 = 60 minutes 2 Test Validity: To ensure that the pre - post functional writing test is valid, the first version of the test was submitted to ten EFL professors, assistant professors, faculty staff and supervisors to evaluate each question in terms of content and writing skill measured Moreover, they were asked to evaluate the test as a whole in terms of correctness, number of questions, scoring method and difficulty of the writing test Test Reliability: To guarantee that the pre - post functional writing test was reliable, the researcher used the test - retest method The test was administered twice to a sample of 20 first year secondary students at Abdel Fattah Azzam institute for girls, Dakhilyia governorate It is worth saying here that this sample was chosen randomly and was not included in the sample of the experiment The time span between the two International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 175 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail administrations of the test was two weeks to ensure that students would not remember their answers in the first administration of the test Reliability of the test was estimated by comparing the scores of the students in the first and the second administrations using the following Pearson correlation Table: Pearson Correlations VAR00002 VAR00001 919 1.000 Pearson Correlation 000 Sig (2-tailed) 30 1.000 30 919 N Pearson Correlation 000 Sig (2-tailed) VAR00001 VAR00002 30 30 N ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) Applying the above Pearson correlation, the reliability co-efficient was (.919), thus proving that the functional writing test was statically reliable The Test Administration: After estimating the suitable time for taking the test, based on results of the test piloting on September 2012, the pre - posttest was first administered to the control and experimental groups in the normal classroom situation so that students' performance would he natural It was administered on the first of October 2012; that was two days prior to the experiment Time allocated to the test as estimated was 60 minutes The pre - posttest was also administered to both the experimental and the control groups two days after the end of the experiment ended on the 20th of January 2013 Scoring the test Rubric and description validity: First the researcher marked the students' answers to the test according to the specified marks for each item of the functional writing skills, and then he gave the answers to another teacher of English The Suggested Functional Writing Program 3.1 Aim of the Program International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 176 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail with the comparison between the control and the experimental groups on the post test The second set focuses on those hypotheses concerned with the pre/post writing performance of the experimental group with respect to the writing test First: Hypotheses concerned with the comparison between the control and the experimental groups on the post test Verifying hypothesis one: Hypothesis one of the present study states that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group exposed to the suggested post-process-based instruction program, and the control group receiving regular instruction on the post test in overall writing proficiency in favor of the experimental group In order to verify this hypothesis, "t" tests for independent samples where used to compare the mean scores of the two groups on the post test The results of the ''t'' tests proved to be statistically consistent with the hypothesis See table Table: "t" value "the calculated value of the difference between the mean scores of the two groups the experimental and the control group in the post administration of the functional writing skills test" Groups (N) (M) S Sig Effect D "t" value D.F sig at size Control 30 Experimental 30 27.7 73.77 22.94 58 11.23 calculated Tabulated 9.74 2.39 (0.01) Large Table (3) shows that the estimated: "t" value (9.74) was statistically significant at (0.01) level Thus it can be safely said that there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups, the experimental and the control in the overall writing in the post administration of the functional writing skills test in favor of the experimental group So the first hypothesis was confirmed Moreover, in order to make sure that the results obtained from the ''t'' tests are reliable and to measure the effectiveness of the proposed program on the students' writing skills, the effect size of the proposed program on the students' writing skills was calculated according to the following formula: International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 181 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail d= Where: d = the calculated effect size t = the estimated ''t'' value = The square root of degrees of freedom The referential framework for identifying the effect size of ''t'' values is as follows: Table (4) the referential framework for identifying the effect size of ''t'' values Effect size ''d'' value Interpretation * From (0.2) tell less than (0.5) Small * From (0.5) tell less than(0.8) Medium * (0.8) or more Large As shown in table (1), the effect size value of the proposed program on the students' writing skills was (19.89) Thus the program had a large effect on the experimental group students' overall writing performance on the writing posttest as compared to that of the control group Verifying hypothesis two: Hypothesis two of the present study states that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group students and the control group students on the post test in each writing skill in favor of the experimental group ''t'' tests for independent samples were calculated in order to compare the post –test mean scores of the experimental and control group in content, organization, fluency and accuracy skills The results proved to be statistically consistent with the hypothesis Therefore the second hypothesis was supported Table (3) shows this statistical significance Table (5) ''t'' test results of the post-test comparing the control and the experimental groups' mean scores in each writing skill Data The functional writing skills 1- Content Experimental Control M S.D 8.16 12.186 M S.D 2.8 2Organization 12.33 18.667 2.11 Calculated (D) value (sig "t" value Level The Effect size 4.53 69.00 19.89 0.01 Large 4.66 84.00 19.89 0.01 Large International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 182 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail 3- Fluency 7.47 7.467 1.7 4- Accuracy 13.45 45.375 6.4 20.37 1.7 80.00 19.89 0.01 Large 58.89 19.89 0.01 Large Table (5) shows that there is a statistically significant difference at (0.01) level between the mean scores of the control and experimental groups on the post-test in each writing skill (''t'' values = 69.00 for the content skill, 84.00 for the organization skill, 80.00 for the fluency skill and 58.89 for the accuracy skill) in favor of the experimental group In addition, (the effect size values = 19.89 for each sub-skill) it reveals that the proposed program had a large effect size on the experimental group students skill Second: Hypotheses focusing on the comparison between the pre-post writing test of the experimental group Hypothesis three: Hypothesis three of the present study states that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group on the writing pre-test and post-test in overall writing skills in favor of the post-test scores To verify this hypothesis ''t'' tests for paired samples where used These ''t'' tests aimed at comparing the mean scores of the experimental group on the pre-test and the post-test in overall writing performance See table (6) Table: ''t'' test results comparing the pre-test Vs post-test means for the experimental group in overall writing "t" value The N administration M S.D Pre 30 32.37 41.4 Post 30 73.77 D.F 125.2 Sig Effect size Calculated Tabulated 109.13 2.46 Sig.at + (0.01) 19.89 large Table "6" shows that there is a statistically significant difference at 0.01 level in overall writing between the mean scores of the experimental group on the pre-test and International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 183 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail the post-test in favor of the post-test scores since estimated ''t'' value was (109.13) Thus, the third hypothesis was confirmed In addition, the estimated effect size value (19.89) shown above in table (4) indicates that the program had a large effect on the experimental group students' overall writing performance on the post-test as compared to their overall writing performance on the pre-test Hypothesis four: Hypothesis four of the present study states that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group on the writing pre-test and post-test in each writing skill (content, organization, fluency and accuracy) in favor of the post-test scores In order to verify the validity of this hypothesis, ''t'' tests for paired samples were used ''see table (7)'' Table: Freedom Data The functional degree writing skills Calculated "t" value (η 2) Value (D) value The Effect size 1- Content 29 69.00 0.99 19.89 2- Organization 29 84.00 0.99 19.89 3- Fluency 29 80.00 0.99 19.89 4- Accuracy 29 58.89 0.99 19.89 109.13 0.99 19.89 Large/ high Large/ high Large/ high Large/ high Large/ high 5- Skills as a 29 whole Results proved that there is a statistically significant difference at (0.01) level between the mean scores of the experimental group on the pre-test and the post-test in content, organization, fluency and accuracy skills as ''t'' values are (69.00) for content, (84.00) for organization, (80.00) for fluency and (58.89) for accuracy Moreover all the effect sizes were large 4.2 Discussion of Results In this section, the results of the study are discussed in detail in terms of the five main dependent variables: overall writing performance, content, organization, fluency and International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 184 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail accuracy In the light of the significant results of the study, it can be concluded that the proposed post-process based program proved to be effective in enhancing the experimental group students' writing skills in general and writing sub-skills in particular This was clear in the support gained for the four hypotheses of the study In fact the students' scores on the pre-writing test were very low This shows that their level in the English writing skills was very weak This may be attributed to the fact that they were not given enough opportunities to practice or use English in the English classes So, their writing skill was not developed, as they did not have time to practice writing in the classroom Also their English language teachers were not aware of the importance of giving their students enough time and opportunities to practice the writing skill in the classroom When comparing between the experimental and the control group students' mean scores on the post administration of the writing test, the estimated value of "t" (9.74) was highly significant at the (0.01) level of significance The difference between the percentages of the mean scores of the experimental group and control group students on the post administration of the writing test was (46.70) This indicates that the gain in the writing skill in favor of the experimental group students This is due to giving the experimental group students enough time to write English through using the postprocess writing approach in their teaching Thus the experimental group students that were taught through the post-process writing approach outperformed the control group students on the post-administration of the writing test in spite of their being of the same level on the pre-administration of the same test Moreover, when comparing both the experimental group students' mean scores on the pre and post administration of the writing test, the estimated value of "t" (109.13) was significant at the level of (0.01) This means that the experimental group students' writing skill improved greatly on the post-administration of the writing test than that of its pre-administration due to the application of the post-process writing approach This may be attributed to the following reasons: 1- The motivational nature of the post-process writing approach through which the students are engaged in different co-operative activities that encourage them to participate in effective discussions and collaborate with International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 185 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail each other in groups to write topics concerned with the surrounding society 2- The post process writing approach creates a social warm classroom climate which helps the students to have self-confidence in learning while participating and communicating with their colleagues inside the groups 3- The post-process writing approach enhances co-operation and collaboration among students, thus increasing their enjoyment and activity 4- The post-process writing approach is mainly student-centered approach as they most of the work in planning, reading, listening, speaking, writing, commenting and presenting The functional writing skills are developed due to the application of the post-process writing approach which was used to provide the experimental group students with real topics related to the social, cultural, religious, economic and political aspects of life to prepare the students to deal using writing with real situations in life When computing the effect size of the post-process writing approach on the overall writing performance, the Eta value square (η2) was (0.99) This means that (99%) of the differentiation in the functional wiring skills is related to using the post-process writing approach Although the post-process writing approach proved to have a large effect size on the required functional writing skills in general, it also proved to have a large effect size on each sub-skill in particular where the calculated "t" value for the content sub-skill was 69.00, for the organization sub-skill was 84.00, for the fluency sub-skill was 80.00 and for the accuracy sub-skill was (58.89) This means that the four sub-skills were developed equally and this is attributed to the integration of the four sub-skills in the writing skill and any development in one sub-skill must affect, in the same way, in developing the other sub-skills A) The content sub-skill achieved ''t'' (69.00) and this may be due to the following reasons: The content sub-skill's category is composed of three sub-skills (i.e 1- presenting the main idea in the form of a topic sentence 2- presenting a number of accurate and well-chosen details to support the main idea 3- giving the reader relevant, coherent and important information in line with the topic) Each of which needs a high level of International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 186 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail thinking which the researcher was fully aware of on training the students during the program The proposed post-process based program contained a variety of useful activities concerning writing so many topics which helped the students in the experimental group to differentiate between the main ideas which they used as topic sentences and the subordinate ideas which they used as details to support the main ideas Also the reason behind the students' ease in mastering this skill was training the students to use the internet and go to the library to gather information about the topics they wrote about during the program The proposed program gave the students the freedom to select from a prepared long list of topics moreover it gave the students the right to suggest their own topics During the stages of the program, the students collaborated and wrote about topics that relate to the surrounding society: socially, politically, economically and that relate also to the religious and cultural aspects of the society They wrote about: pollution, smoking, traffic, tourism, freedom, Taha Hussien, Hossam Hassan, Ahmed Zeweil, Farouq El Baz and the 25th of January revolution B) The organization sub-skill achieved (84.00) and this may be due to the following reasons: - The organization skill's category is composed of four sub-skills (i.e 1Writing a strong related topic sentence that gives clues about what is coming next, 2Using logical sequence to help the ideas flow together 3- Writing a suitable conclusion 4- Using the correct layout of the form of writing a paragraph, a letter and an e-mail The proposed post-process based program employed a variety of conscious raising activities which drew the students' attention to special characteristics of the topic sentence It also trained the students on how to use a logical sequence to help the ideas flow together, how to write a suitable conclusion for the paragraph, the letter and the email and how to use the correct layout of the form of writing a paragraph, a letter and an e-mail Also the reason behind the students' ease in mastering this skill was the use of co-operative and collaborative learning strategy which is employed through the post-process writing approach It is undoubted that the students' collaboration to develop this skill was suitable to the students' age as they liked to work and interact with each other inside their groups They benefited greatly from each other International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 187 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail C) The fluency sub-skill achieved (80.00) and this may be due to the following reasons: The fluency sub-skills category is composed of two sub-skills (i.e 1- using complete sentences rich with suitable vocabulary 2- using various correct sentence structures.) The proposed post-process based program employed a variety of useful activities concerning choosing the suitable vocabulary for the missing parts in sentences The proposed program provided the students with a variety of exercises such as choose the correct words and fill in the following passage with the suitable word Also the proposed program employed a variety of useful activities concerning using various correct sentence structures The proposed program provided the students in the experimental group with the following structures: The personal pronouns and their conjugation in the different forms (subject, object, possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives and reflexive), The tenses, Conjunctions and Kinds of sentences (simple, compound and complex) The researcher provided the students with handouts besides teaching them the previous structures to use them in time of need and to overcome the shortage of time The proposed program provided the students in the experimental group with different kinds of exercises such as: choose the correct answer, complete the following paragraphs with the suitable verb tenses The researcher also used drills so many times with his students for practicing these structures The researcher used repetition drills, substitution drills, transformational drills, ask and answer drills and chain drills until he became sure that the students are aware of these skills and are able to write paragraphs, letters and emails using complete sentences rich with suitable vocabulary and using various sentences structure D) The accuracy sub-skill achieved (58.89) and this may be due to the following reasons: The accuracy sub-skills category is composed of three sub-skills (i.e 1- Using correct punctuation 2- Using correct spelling 3- Using eligible handwriting.) Each of which is easy for the students to learn and study on their own directly after receiving the handout that provided them with the required instructions The proposed program tackled these three sub-skills in a way that was different from that used with the other functional writing sub-skills It requires that the students apply these sub-skills all over the program In addition the students of the experimental group made some International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 188 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail exercises concerning punctuation, spelling and writing using eligible handwriting and used these accuracy sub-skills all over the program in each lesson Findings and Conclusion The analysis of results concerning the present study reveal that the experimental group students achieved the target goal of the present study as their level in the writing skill was developed due to the use of the post-process writing approach The effect size of using the post-process writing approach on developing the first year secondary institute students' functional writing skills was large and it came with the following findings: 1- The difference between the mean scores of the students of the experimental group that used the post-process writing approach and the students of the control group that received regular instruction proved to be statistically significant, at the level of (0.01), in all the required functional writing skills as a whole on the post-administration of the test, in favor of the experimental group students 2- The difference between the mean scores of the experimental group students in all the required functional writing skills in general on the pre and post administrations of the test proved to be statistically significant, at the level of (0.01) in favor of the post administration of the test 3- The difference between the mean scores of the experimental group and the control group students proved to be statistically significant at the level of (0.01) in each category of the required functional writing skills on the post-administration of the test, in favor of the experimental group students 4- The difference between the mean scores of the experimental group students on the pre and post administrations of the test proved to be statically significant at the level of (0.01) in each category of the required functional writing skills in favor of the postadministration About the Author: Ismail Ibrahim Elshirbini Abdel-fattah El-Ashri is a research scholar pursuing Ph.D course in the Department of Curricula& Methods, Faculty of Education, Mansoura University, Egypt He is also co-director of the project Zero with the world International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN: 2308-5460 July-September, 2013 www.eltsjournal.org 189 IJ-ELTS: International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail renowned Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, Egypt where he also works as a teacher of English as a foreign language References  Abd El Fattah M Ali (2007) The Effect of Using E-Learning on Developing the Writing Skills of EFL Secondary Students And Their Attitudes Towards it Unpublished thesis, Faculty of Education ,Al Azhar University Ager, S (2010) "Writing and Writing Systems" Omni lot Writing System & languages of the World www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htm  Ahmed, A Mohammed (2004) The Effect of Using The Whole Language Approach On Developing Some Composition Writing Skills In English For Experimental Secondary School Students Unpublished thesis, Faculty of Education, Helwan University  Ahmed, N (2003) Using School Journalism for Developing some Writing Skills for Secondary Stage Students Unpublished M.A Thesis, Faculty of Education, University of Zagazig  Andrews & Andrews (2001).Writing that Works, 7th edition Ollu, Brusaw, Alred  Atkinson, D (2003) L2 writing in the post – process era: Introduction Journal of second language Writing 12 – 15  Badger, R., & White, G (2000) Product, process and genre: Approaches to writing in EAP ELT journal, 54 (2), 153 - 160  Bawarshi, A (2003) Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition Logan, Utah: Utah State University  Belcher, D (1997) An argument for non-adversarial argumentation: On the relevance of the feminist critique of academic discourse to L2 writing pedagogy Journal of Second Language Writing, 6, 1-21  Belcher, D (2001) Does L2 writing have gender? 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International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail Another type of evaluation was... Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail The overall aim of the program was to develop the. .. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol: 1, Issue: The Leverage of a Proposed Post – Process Writing Approach Program El-Ashri, Ismail the post- test in favor of the post- test