The cognitive process of writing in English: Developing the cognitive based learning model

Abstract

Skill in writing English is considered a very difficult or complex skill to acquire, especially for students studying English as a foreign language. Often-times, students lose track of what they are doing in the process of writing in English because of the plethora of ideas that come into their minds. In order to be able to accommodate and conceptualize these ideas, managing this cognitive data can be done by using the Think Aloud Protocols Technique. This cognitive based learning method is developed based on the competence of the students in writing. Through a Research and Development (R & D) design, this finding was applied to build up a cognitive learning model which was oriented to the products of the writing by the students in English. It was found that in general, the cognitive processes of thestudents were able to comprehend explicitly all the activities related to pre-writing, writing, and after writing. However, when referring to their actual competence, the cognitive speeches of the studentsshowed that they did not completely comprehend it all. Quite a lot of barriers were found and there are also several strategies that the students did in pre-writing, writing, and after writing. A mode forlearning to write based on cognitive processes was also found and has been tested. The results from the test showed that there was some improvement in the English writing produced by the students.