Investigating the Balance of Writing Tasks in Sixth-Grade English Textbooks

The present study investigated the nature of writing tasks in sixth-grade English textbooks from various perspectives in order to understand whether they provide balanced writing opportunities. The total of five English textbooks were analyzed; all of the writing activities included in the English textbooks were identified and investigated to explore the following research questions: (a) What is the balance in the orientation of writing tasks included in sixth-grade English textbooks? and (b) What is the level of writing sixth graders practice through English textbooks? In particular, the orientation of writing tasks was analyzed according to Dvorak (1986)’s categorization (i.e., transcription, composition) and Paulston’s (1972) and Aski’s (2003) categorization (i.e., mechanical drill, meaningful drill, communicative drill, communicative language practice). The results of the study suggested that meaningful drills account for the most substantial percentages in all of the five English textbooks with 56.43% on average; meanwhile, the second most frequent category of writing activities varies. From a broader perspective, approximately two-thirds of writing activities is devoted for transcription; one-third of them belongs to composition. As for the level of writing, the most frequent one goes to word-level writing followed by phrase-, sentence-, and discourse-level. The findings accentuate the need for providing students more opportunities for meaning negotiation processes during writing and for discourse-level writings, in order to help them successfully fulfill the standard of the English National Curriculum.