Journal of Mother Tongue Education

Abstract

Process-based writing is a writing approach in which the writing process is discussed in various sub-dimensions such as planning, drafting, reviewing, editing and sharing, etc., under the guidance of the teacher. The teacher’s role is very important in this writing approach, which positively affects the student’s written expression skill. The purpose of the current study is to determine Turkish teachers’ opinions and experiences related to process-based writing. To this end, a structured interview form was administered to 28 Turkish teachers who volunteered to participate in the study and the data obtained were analyzed by using descriptive analysis and content analysis. The codes derived from the teachers’ answers were grouped into categories, and the categories were grouped into themes. As a result of this process, a total of three themes were obtained: The theme of “Writing”, which includes the Turkish teachers’ writing purposes and writing practices, the theme of “Process-Based Writing”, which includes their opinions on process-based writing and the theme of “Findings on and Suggestions for Process-Based Writing”, which includes findings on and suggestions for process-based writing. In line with the data obtained from the study, a construct was reached based on the Turkish teachers’ opinions on process-based writing. As a result of the study, it was concluded that teachers knew process-based writing as a concept, but they did not have the knowledge and experience on how to apply it, and by process-based writing they meant a process of superficial preparation. Although the teachers stated that they practiced process-based writing, it was determined that the writing activities they implemented could not be considered within the scope of process-based writing. Another result of the study is that the teachers identified the benefits of process-based writing, but stated limitations that did not coincide with the research results in the relevant literature. In addition, the teachers stated that it is possible to implement process-based writing in cases where conditions related to class size and class hours are suitable, and they offered suggestions to achieve these conditions.