Using Multimedia to Enhance Third Year Prep Students' Writing Skills and Their interest in English

Abstract

The current study attempted to overcome the shortcomings in teaching writing skills for third year preparatory school stage students and their interest in English by using multimedia materials based on Mayer's cognitive theory. The participants of the study consisted of two classes (72 students) enrolled in Oum-Khnan Preparatory School for girls, Monofia. The study adopted the quasi experimental design where the two intact classes were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (36 students) or the control group (36 students). Both groups were pre-tested before conducting experiment. To determine the most important writing skills to be enhanced throughout the proposed program, writing checklist was designed and approved by the jury of subject matter specialists. The researcher designed a rubric to measure the writing skills. Based on these skills, a pre/posttest was developed and used to measure the students writing skills. During the multimedia program, the experimental group students wrote with supported multimedia materials and activities whereas the control group wrote traditionally on paper. The multimedia program was implemented during the second semester of the scholastic year 2012/2013.the multimedia program lasted eight weeks, two sessions per week. After the experiment, both groups were post-tested using the same test. The obtained data were analyzed using the t-test. Findings showed that there is a statically significant difference on the post-test in favor of the experimental group. The multimedia program worked effectively for the experimental group in terms of organization, grammar &structure, vocabulary choice, and language mechanics of writing. There is a statically significant difference on interest inventory in favor of the post one. These findings suggest that multimedia program is an effective method for enhancing some of the EFL students writing skills and their interest in English.