The Effects of Story Mapping on Picture Writing for EFL Senior High School Students in Taiwan

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of story mapping instruction on the picture-guided writing performance of EFL senior high school students in Taiwan. Seventy-six juniors in high school from two classes in Ping-Jen Senior High School participated in the present study. The experiment lasted for ten weeks from March 2004 to May 2004. During the experiment, the participants underwent story mapping instruction, took a pre-test and post-test, responded to a questionnaire and were interviewed. Differences in the students` story writing performance were analyzed in terms of the t-test results of three elements: word count, story grammar units and story writing performance. In addition, the qualitative data were summarized and discussed. Given both the quantitative and qualitative results, we consider that it is difficult to deny the important role played by the story mapping strategy in affecting students` progress in story writing. Based on the findings, the researchers recommend that story mapping instruction be introduced to EFL writers as a pre-writing activity in the writing course.

此研究探究故事建構教學在台灣高中生看圖寫作上的影響。76名來自平鎮高中兩個班級的高二學生參加此研究。從2004年3月到2004年5月，該研究為期2週的時間。在研究中，參與者接受故事建構教學、做前後測、回答一份問卷並接受訪問。根據三要素（字數、故事文法單位、故事寫作表現）的t檢定結果，以分析學生們在故事寫作表現上的不同。此外，也對蒐集到的質性資料進行統整與討論。根據量化和質化的分析結果，我們認為故事建構策略在學生們故事寫作成長中所扮演的重要角色是不容忽視的。根據結果發現，研究者建議在寫作課程中，寫作前活動應該向學生們介紹故事建構教學。