Examination of the use of local teaching materials in junior high school English writing

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to suggest an instructional method to improve the accuracy and to enhance the richness of contents of students’ writing by utilizing regional materials in the classroom. The research questions for this study are: 1. whether the use of local materials enriches the content of students’ writing, and 2. whether the use of model English texts reduces the number of spelling and word order errors in students’ writing. 13 students in 7th and 13 students in 8th graders at a public compulsory education school in Kochi prefecture wrote short essays using model texts based on local materials. The results showed that the distribution of the model sentences helped students who had difficulty with the writing because the local materials were familiar to them. On the other hand, the distribution of model sentences may limit students’ topics of discussion. In addition, model sentences may decrease students’ spelling errors in English composition but had no effect on word order errors.