Collaborative planning and reciprocal explanation in training writing expository texts: Development and implementation of the training program

ITOH, Masako, ITOH, Yuji, and SEKINO, Saeko

masakoi@hit.ntt-at.co.jp

Abstract

We developed a training curriculum of expository writing, in which collaborative planning and reciprocal explanation about the plans were featured. We implemented the curriculum as a two-day training course in a company. We first explained a process model of expository writing and strategies for planning and revising. Then the participants were divided into small groups and did three writing tasks. In each task they collaboratively planned within the groups and reciprocally explained their plans to other groups. The participants and the lecturer evaluated and diagnozed the plans. Then they individually wrote expository texts. Pre and post training texts were evaluated in terms of structure, rhetorical expression, understandability, and total quality by five scorers. The results showed that the mean score were higher for the post texts than for the pre texts in all four aspects. It was also found that the participants consider the context of use much better in writing post texts than in writing pre texts. The questionnaire which was mailed to the paticipants one year after the training showed that most of them evaluated what they had learned useful when they wrote texts in their job.