THE PREFERENCE OF WRITING APPROACH AMONG ESL TEACHER TRAINEES IN PRIMARY EDUCATION A PREFERÊNCIA PELA ABORDAGEM DE REDAÇÃO ENTRE OS PROFESSORES ESTAGIÁRIOS DE ESL NO ENSINO PRIMÁRIO

Deterioration in the command of English language among Malaysian students has been discussed far and wide. English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers strive to adopt and adapt various strategies to customize lessons, particularly the writing lessons to enable students to write in English. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the writing instructions practised by the teacher trainees in selected ESL primary classrooms in Malaysia. The study scrutinized the details of the two writing


Introduction
Teaching English is becoming more and more challenging from day to day.
This issue becomes serious as the command of English language among the second language (L2) learners, especially is not very convincing. Subsequently, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in classrooms can be extremely demanding for many educators (Moses & Mohamad, 2019;Salyers, 2009). One of the challenges in an ESL setting is that students come from various backgrounds and needs with diverse schemata (Finn, 2018). This situation is obvious in L2 classrooms for teachers teaching specific skills such as teaching writing in Malaysian classrooms.
Thus, the educators including the teacher trainees and in-service teachers need to plan their daily lessons carefully based on the pedagogical epistemology they gained during their training period at universities or teacher training institutions. There are many factors within the classrooms and institutions settings that have influenced the teachers' decisions in planning their lessons to teach their classrooms as effectively as possible. Teachers also require constant effort in developing their teaching skills to teach effectively in ESL writing classrooms (Yunus et al., 2012).
Many studies have confirmed that teachers' writing instructions have a great impact on students' written accomplishment performance (Hodges et al., 2019;Myers et al., 2016). The outcome of the teaching approaches can be learned not only from the teachers' reflections but also from the students' perceptions. There are researchers who found that in writing activities, the end product is more emphasized than the processes involved during the writing activities (Yong, 2010).
In order to teach English language components such as writing skills well, the teachers need to adopt the right approaches and strategies that suit their students' learning levels. The strategies chosen by the educators can also largely affect their teaching outcome in teaching writing. Therefore, the teachers usually pay a lot of attention in making the right choice of writing strategy in designing their lesson plans to teach writing to their students. The studies on ESL writing practices have also revealed that much emphasis is placed by researchers on the fact that teachers need to re-examine their traditional teaching approaches in teaching writing despite various challenges (Haider, 2012). The teachers' strategies and the students' learning progress in writing skills need to be studied as early as possible to address the issues of writing challenges (Fareed et al., 2016).
One of the most difficult aspects of large-scale education research projects in international development work is to identify the most appropriate strategy to cater to the need of a variety of learners (Foster, 2017). Some research shows that teachers writing instructions need to be scrutinized as some studies prove that there are teachers who are unable to conduct writing lessons efficiently which could affect the mastery of good writing skills of the students (Harris & Graham, 2016). In line with this, some thorough studies were carried out where effective strategies and approaches of teaching writing were discussed to benefit both teachers and students. Thus, this study Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the writing instructions practised by the teacher trainees in selected ESL primary classrooms in Malaysia. The study scrutinized the details of the two writing approaches used with regard to the product approach and process approach. It is important to know the preference of the teacher-trainees and the reasons underpinning their pedagogical decisions and effects on students. Thus, more meaningful and effective writing instructions can be suggested based on the findings of this study and previous studies.

Literature Review
In all Malaysian national primary and secondary schools, English is a taught and becomes a compulsory subject for students to learn. ESL teachers teach writing skills based on the syllabus prepared by the Ministry of Education (MOE). The writing teachers do have the liberty to employ suitable strategies and approaches in planning and executing their writing lessons according to the topic or themes that they aim to teach. Some significant evolution took place in writing instructions and writing practices in Malaysian classrooms since 1960s with the purpose improvising writing lessons in myriad ways (Hashemnezhad, 2012).
The product approach and process approach are two approaches among many approaches which are predominantly employed in the ESL writing instructions (Tangkiengsirisin, 2006 (Palpanadan et al., 2014). On the one hand, the product approach involves a more traditional way of teaching where model essays are provided to encourage students to produce their own writing. The details of the written essays including the sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary are allowed to be reproduced in writing their essays. The familiarizations of important aspects of the model will be highlighted by the teachers and students practise them where controlled writing is carried out. Finally, students are expected to write a full essay using the practice of elements highlighted in producing a guided writing (essays). Thus, all the students are able to produce an identical writing based on the models provided. Besides, this approach helped teachers to cover the syllabus on time and a large number of students' writing can be facilitated mainly, in terms of language accuracy. Thus, this approach seems to be very helpful for teachers. On the other hand, the process approach strongly emphasizes on the processes involved the writing activity and writing skills. This enables the students to progress gradually as this approach also involves the preparation of several drafts before confirming the final draft. Besides, the development in the writing process requires constant feedback from the teachers despite the fact that providing feedback can be a tedious task for teachers (Cunningham, 2019). Through feedback, students can improve their ability in writing from time to time instantly by adopting this strategy as a learning style which could also foster a better relationship between the educators and learners. Meanwhile, providing appropriate responses or feedback is not an easy task for teachers especially when it involves students from various backgrounds (Cunningham & Link, 2021). Teachers need to have the appropriate skills to respond to students' writing as not can demotivate students in the process of responding to their written tasks (Hodges et al., 2019). These skills need to be practised and process approach allows room for teachers to conduct this activity as part of the writing procedures. Simultaneously, teachers may learn to respond well while providing constructive feedback to students to encourage them write more effectively. However, the debate over which strategies work better as writing instruction continues among educators and researchers.
The writing activities that the teacher trainees design for the students largely depend on the writing tasks exposed to them and the requirement of the academic syllabus for the students' studying level (Jwa, 2019). Meanwhile, it also important to monitor the students' progress based on their participation in the writing activities carried out in the classroom and their written tasks. Thus, there should a continuous collaboration between the teachers and the students in terms of the learning objectives so that both parties can observe any improvement in mastering the learning skills (Sardareh & Saad, 2012). Therefore, the teaching strategies of the teacher trainees may include activities that could provide more autonomy to the students to have more initiative of their own toward the writing activities given to them so that they can develop more independent writing habits.
Thus, the writing instructions of teacher trainees is an important area to be studied as they would freshly graduate from the teacher training institutions and could proceed with improvised teaching approaches for a relatively long period of time in their career. Their writing strategies should be studied to encourage them to practise a better teaching approach that would be beneficial for their students in becoming prominent and independent writers. Therefore, this study aims to explore the preferred teaching approach used by the teacher trainees to teach writing in ESL primary schools. In addition, the factors affecting the teacher trainees' pedagogical decisions were also investigated. The study also attempted to provide some useful suggestions as more effective teaching strategies to help students grasp good writing skills and able to write independently.

Methodology/Materials
This qualitative study was conducted to explore the teacher trainees' decision-making factors while preparing the writing lessons for their classes. A group of ten teacher trainees from various primary schools in the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia participated in the study. They were observed and interviewed to study their pedagogical decisions in teaching writing in ESL classrooms. The participants were all teaching years three and four in national primary schools. Each participant was observed five times in the classrooms while conducting the writing lessons. The observation was conducted using an observation checklist which was prepared based on Steel's Model of Writing Approaches. The items were prepared based on the strategies highlighted in the model in relation to the product approach and process approach stages. The checklist was verified and approved by three experts. The checklist was also piloted on three different teacher trainees prior to the actual study and was found to be suitable for identifying the writing approach practised by the participants. The researchers had taken the role of non-participant observers. This position helped the researchers to concentrate on data collection so as not to miss out on any important information pertaining to the study. Meanwhile, non-participant observers could record the ongoing activities to permit the participants and learners to carry out their tasks independently (Creswell, 2012).
The researcher did not interfere in the teaching practices adopted by the teacher trainees to avoid biases. In line with that, the non-participatory classroom observation allowed the researchers to focus on data collection while enhancing the reliability of the study. In addition, field notes were also taken during the observation by the researchers. Apart from that, the teaching sessions were recorded in order to secure all the important aspects of the teaching practices.
Videotaping is considered 'naturally occurring' that can be very useful for researchers to validate and cross-check their interpretations of the findings (Jewitt, 2012:3). Consent was obtained from the participants and the institutions (schools) prior to the data collection processes. Subsequently, the data obtained were analyzed using Rasch Measurement Model.
Next, the participants were interviewed once they had completed their teaching practicum. A semi-structured interview was conducted. An interview protocol was prepared prior to the interview session to ensure that all the important aspects of the teaching issues were elicited from the respondents. All information from the interview was transcribed carefully and coded to ensure the validity of the findings. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify the important aspects regarding the factors affecting their pedagogical decisions in relation to the selection of certain teaching strategies adopted by the participants. The themes were checked and confirmed by three experts. The confirmation from the experts was important to enhance the validity of the study (Louis, Manion & Morrison, 2001). The emerging themes were identified to be incongruent with strategies of the dominant approaches that were selected due to their pedagogical decisions based on the teaching writing issues. The findings were triangulated to obtain the most pertinent considerations of the participants' decision-making factors in teaching writing to their students.
The findings were evaluated to suggest better writing instructions for writing teachers to be considered in future ESL writing lessons in producing more prominent writers.

Results and Findings
The primary data were obtained from the classroom observation which was to (Fisher, (2007), the reading of the item measurement reliability above 0.94 is considered excellent. Therefore, the reliability value of the product approach items was proven to be very reliable that they could be tested with other homogenous samples for similar outcomes. In addition, Rasch Measurement Model analysis showed that the item separation value was 6.33 which was considered excellent as the value was above 5 (Fisher, 2007(Fisher, , p. 1095. Thus, the item separation of this study was high as it highlighted that there were six different levels of ability of teacher trainees that had been measured using the items in the observation checklist. Thus, the items can be utilized to examine the writing instruction of the participants in using the strategies of the product approach from various angles to enhance the reliability of the study. Table 1 shows the summary of all the product approach items measured using the observation checklist.  On the other hand, the Rasch Measurement Model analysis was also conducted on 16 items of the process approach. The results showed that the value of item reliability was 0.65 and the value of item separation was 1.37. According to Fisher, (2007Fisher, ( :1095, these values were low which indicated that the process approach was less practised by the participants. Table 2 shows the summary of the measured items of the process approach.  The findings based on the analysis of Rasch Measurement showed that the product approach was widely used by the participants in the teaching writing, while the process approach was less practised. This matter required attention as the process approach is also highlighted by many researchers as a good approach in teaching the development of the writing process for students. Therefore, the reasons for the participants' choices were also investigated by conducting semi-structured interviews with the participants. The responses and views of the participants were transcribed and coded based on the emerging themes. The participants were found to have their own reasons for the pedagogical decisions made pertaining to the writing lessons. The classroom observations helped in studying the participants' teaching practices based on the teaching strategies that they had employed to carry out the writing activities with their respective students. In this study, the participants were found to make decisions based on their perceptions and beliefs about teaching writing. These factors seemed to have assisted them in planning the writing activities carefully in order to achieve their objectives by the end of the writing lessons. According to Allen et al., (2013) classroom observations help to explore the teachers' specific pedagogical behaviours in a very fair manner. In addition, the writing activities in a study conducted by Lee, (2009) also indicated the importance of the beliefs and attitudes of the teachers in deciding on the type of lessons conducted in the classrooms.
Subsequently, the findings in this study highlighted some interesting revelations regarding the institutional factors and the learning culture of the students which were inflicted in the participants' perceptions and beliefs of teaching writing. As the participants were undergoing teaching practicum in schools where the schools had their own teaching and learning practices, they were found to have prepared the writing lessons based on the requirements of the syllabus being used in the stipulated schools. The study conducted by Alkhasawneh, (2010) also found that institutional factors had affected the pre-service teachers' teaching practices. In this study, it was found that the participants' pedagogical decisions were also bound by the teaching and learning culture of the schools. Therefore, the participants tailored their writing lessons based on those elements to capture the students' attention to learn writing skills. The learning culture of the schools was one of the profound elements of the institutional factors that affected the participants' writing instruction in the primary classrooms. The participants shared that generally, the in-service teachers prepared the writing lessons based on the students' proficiency levels. One of the practices was translation. Since most of the students were good in the Malay language, the translation technique from Malay to English was found to be working well among the students. The students also were found to be expecting the participants to translate the difficult words from English to Malay and vice versa so that they could understand the meaning of the words. The main reason for this was the lack of vocabulary acquisition among the students. Some of the participants' views regarding this matter during the interview are shared in Table 3 below.

P.1
When they lack vocabulary, they are not able to write the sentence… they keep asking me … for example, Teacher, what is 'berlari-lari'(running) in English?"

P.9
My pupils have a very limited vocabulary. They need my help to translate some of the words from Malay to English.
The translation practices highlighted by the participants included the need to provide translation to help the students, especially as a last resort when the students could not perform the written tasks given to them. Participants 1, 8, and 9 shared that they translated some of the words from Malay to English as a strategy to assist the students with some words or vocabulary so that the students could write. This was because the participants realized that their students had vocabulary limitations. Therefore, the translated words were provided as a guide to help them to proceed with their writing activities. This shows that translation strategy was a norm for the students. The study conducted by (Spahiu, 2013) also found that some translated words especially the language of the students' mother tongue were found to have helped the students to learn English better. Apparently, the guidance provided to the students would fall into the categories of controlled and guided writing which showed that the participants had opted for the strategies of the Product Approach where the end-product was focused by providing ample of guidance.
Apart from that, the element of teaching constraints also played a crucial role in the participants' pedagogical decisions in teaching writing. There were two major constraints in teaching writing that they faced due to the schools' settings. First, time management was one of the institutional decisions. Basically, 150 minutes were allocated to English subjects per week, and a writing lesson was conducted for 60 minutes per week. The stipulated time for writing lessons consisted of five stages (set induction, presentation, practice, production, closure) for daily lessons.
Normally, the in-class writing was conducted during the production stage. The rest of the stages involved teachers' input and practice of language components before writing. Thus, the actual time for in-class writing was very less. The participants shared about this scenario during the interview. The views are highlighted in Table   4 below. The participants revealed that they had to pay attention to the time factor carefully so that they could carry out activities for all the stages as planned in the writing lessons. The participants were found to provide support and guidance to the students generally so that they could accomplish all the stages smoothly. In this critical condition, they practiced the Product Approach by providing ample of guidance such as similar sentences for the students to reproduce so that all the activities that they had planned could be conducted before the end of each lesson.
Hence, the strategies such as brainstorming, planning, preparing drafts and editing based on constant feedback from the teachers could not be carried out easily as they would consume much time. This finding is in contrast with the study conducted by Cunningham, (2019) who highlighted that providing various types feedback had helped the students improve their writing skills. Apparently, the process approach is known to help students to develop their writing skills. There were a lot of difficulties in paying attention to any individual students due to the time constraint.
Many studies have supported this issue. For example, Harris & Graham, (2016) claim that the teaching time devoted to teaching writing in classroom is very limited causing students' deprivation of writing experience under the supervision of the teachers. However, in this case, the institutional factor of the time constraint was found to hinder more activities (strategies) of the process approach such as preparing several drafts and obtaining necessary feedback from the participants from being carried out in the writing classes.
Next, the size of the classrooms which easily consisted of more than 30 to 40 students or even more, per class also became a challenge for the participants when conducting the writing lessons. This was also another institutional factor that became the norm in the primary schools where there was a large number of students in each class. Some of the participants' views regarding the size of the classroom during the interview are shared in Table 5 below. The statements shared by the participants showed that they struggled to cater to the needs of a large number of students in each class. The writing activities had to be planned by keeping in mind of the classroom size by referring to the number of students and the space of the classroom. Besides the teachers, the students were also reported to be uncomfortable when participating in pair work or group activities due to the limited space. Therefore, the writing activities that would enhance the writing development of the students such as planning, editing, and rewriting could not be carried out precisely. In this case, the guided writing strategy of the product approach seemed to be suitable for this situation in the ESL classroom to cover the syllabus on time. This finding contrasts with the findings of a study conducted by Jwa, (2019) where the learning outcomes of the ESL classrooms were very much focused on the knowledge that assists develop content and organization.
In addition, the study also highlighted that the participants revealed during the interview session that language use was the slightest concern in their writing activities. Thus, the strategies of process approach would be more helpful in guiding ESL learners which could be the focus of the participants in planning and executing their writing lessons.

Conclusion
This study has identified that the teacher trainees who participated in this study preferred to use more strategies of product approach such as familiarization, controlled writing, and guided writing. Meanwhile, some of them agreed that indeed the strategies of the process approach would be useful to practise to help students develop their writing skills independently. However, there were several factors that had influenced their pedagogical decisions which affected their perception and beliefs about conducting the writing lessons. Apparently, the institutional factors were found to play a very important role in the preparation of the writing lessons among the teacher trainees. The constrictions of vocabulary and language exposure were encountered by using the translation method where students were facilitated to write by providing vocabulary (words) in English, as requested by the students (in the Malay language and vice versa). Therefore, excessive guidance especially in terms of translated vocabulary was found to be practised and seemed like a norm in the selected schools. Besides, the constraint of time factor and classroom size had also affected the teacher trainees' pedagogical decisions. The lessons were construed in a way to be accomplished within the stipulated writing class allotted.
In addition, it was not easy for the teacher trainees to ensure that all the students (in the classroom) had grasped the writing skills taught for the day.
Therefore, the strategies of the process approach such as getting the students to complete multiple drafts and editing were not able to be conducted within the short period of time allotted for the writing lesson. Thus, providing a model (sample paragraphs) and discussing the main elements of the models was a more effective way to teach writing in that situation. Apparently, it was found that due to some of the institutional factors, the teacher trainees had resorted to selecting the strategies of product approach to teach writing skills to their students. This was mainly because it was manageable for them to cater to the needs of the students despite the constraints of lack of vocabulary, time, and space for the writing lessons. Ostensibly, the use of product approach strategies may seem to help in solving the problems for the teacher trainees temporarily. However, in the long run, the teacher trainees and the in-service teachers will have to find ways to scrutinize the institutional factors to incorporate strategies of the process approach to facilitate the development of the writing skills among the students. Thus, this study would like to recommend the use of process approach strategies in teaching writing. The strategies such as brainstorming, preparing several drafts, and editing as highlighted in the process approach can be incorporated into writing instructions stage by stage, so that it can become a common practice and norm for all the teachers as their focus in planning the writing lessons. The strategies of the process approach can be included in the ESL writing classrooms separately (as a full lesson) or by merging selected strategies with the product approach strategies more profoundly which are already being practised by many teachers nowadays as a mission toward producing more independent writers of the future.