EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF TEXT MODELLING AMONG RURAL ESL LEARNERS’ PERSUASIVE ESSAY WRITING

Particularly persuasive, essay writing is challenging for rural ESL learners. They face difficulty producing organised and coherent writing, which results in their low achievement in the English language. Scaffolding through text modelling in the writing classroom has benefited learners. The present study employed the non-equivalent pre-test post-test control group design. Thirty learners in the experimental group and the control group took the pre-test. The experimental group was treated with a 10-hour intervention, while the control group underwent conventional teaching. Both groups then undertook the post-test. The findings revealed a significant difference between the two groups, with a large effect size of 3.68. The experimental group indicated improvement in using the five-paragraph framework to fulfil the purpose of writing. The group also indicated improvement in the content, organisation and language use marks. The study contributed to the research literature on rural ESL writing and recommended text modelling applied to scaffold persuasive writing.