Using Digital Pictures to Enhance Students’ Chinese Writing Skills ^†

Abstract

In the past, it was not uncommon to take one image to represent an essay’s contents. When writing an essay, an image is invariably formed in the mind. Using a qualitative descriptive method, a relationship between the number of digital images in the essay and the utilization of the essay was researched for 55 students. The results showed that the number of pictures was proportional to the number of words and the flow of the story in an essay but inversely proportional to the student’s mastery of grammar skills. Such results provide a reference for teachers to pay attention to teaching grammar to use digital images in an essay.

1. Introduction

Composing is a process whereby ideas are put into text form; the text in an essay varies depending on the writer’s content. Essays in the form of narrative are generally written about the author’s experiences in the writer’s style. Recently, the ways of writing narrative essays have changed. Online methods such as Gdoc (Google Documents) help writers do not type pinyin and insert digital images. Images help students write texts and impact writing abilities. Images help enhance their writing skills [1,2,3]. This means that images are a significant factor in developing students’ writing skills and encourage them to come up with ideas for phrases in the target language [4]. Images replace writing instruction for students with diverse traits. However, previous related research lacks effort and idea development. Thus, teachers need to incorporate images to improve the writing skills of students [5,6,7].

2. Literature Review

Previous data showed that the application of images improved students’ narrative text writing. Images can be used for concept development, sentence organization, vocabulary growth, convection, and the improvement of grammar usage [8]. Students who acquired writing proficiency through the utilization of visual aids demonstrated increased word output within the designated timeframe of 20 minutes, employed a greater number of cohesive devices, and exhibited a reduced frequency of grammatical errors in comparison to their counterparts who did not employ visual aids [9]. Images help students choose topics that suit their interests, make information easier to understand, inspire them to write more extended essays, and improve their writing abilities, especially regarding writing components and the creative use of images [10,11,12].

In teaching, images help students write descriptive texts. Using the Picture Learning Model (PLM), students can learn how to write narrative texts. Images can be used as a teaching tool as they provide background information and visualize scenarios. With images, students’ writing exam scores significantly improved with fewer mistakes [2,6,13,14]. Using images may increase learning results in terms of students’ writing abilities in English. With image models, students can match their vocabulary to images and use them in the correct sequence. Students’ understanding of narrative texts improves learning outcomes [1].

In the era of digitalization, teaching with images engages students to stimulate their enthusiasm for learning and lessen the issue of passive participation in class. Teachers must have the theoretical background to apply learning using digital images [13,15]. This implies that previous theories can be used to enrich the theoretical framework in the Image Strip Story.

3. Research Method

In this research, a qualitative research method was used for a case study. The outcome of students using images was analyzed. In total, 55 students were assigned for essay writing (Figure 1).

4. Results and Discussion

This research was conducted in two stages of observation: before and after using digital images. In addition to assignments of narrative essays, images were inserted in recipes to assess students’ writing abilities. Students were active in writing essays, and the resulting results improved (Figure 2).

Based on the pictures depicted above, the red lines delineate the areas where students can draw inspiration from the provided visuals for their writing. Consequently, the images can function as a navigational tool to direct their writing.

4.1. Analysis of Students’ Essay

In composing narrative essays, most students used two or three digital images. With more images, the flow and the number of words were increased (

Table 1. Students’ results in writing.

NO	A*	B*	C*	NO	A*	B*	C*
1	4	1	1	31	1	-	2
2	2	-	3	32	2	-	2
3	4	-	4	33	2	-	2
4	3	-	2	34	2	-	2
5	2	-	6	35	4	1	2
6	3	1	1	36	3	-	3
7	8	-	3	37	3	3	-
8	8	-	4	38	-	-	-
9	2	-	1	39	6	4	1
10	5	-	3	40	1	1	-
11	8	-	3	41	4	-	3
12	3	-	4	42	1	-	3
13	1	-	2	43	3	-	1
14	3	-	3	44	3	-	1
15	3	-	2	45	3	-	1
16	3	-	4	46	1	-	4
17	2	-	2	47	6	1	5
18	10	-	4	48	3	1	3
19	9	2	3	49	3	-	1
20	2	1	3	50	4	-	1
21	3	-	2	51	5	-	4
22	1	-	1	52	3	-	-
23	3	2	3	53	3	-	2
24	1	-	4	54	4	-	2
25	1	-	1	55	3	1	4
26	1	1	3
27	1	-	5
28	1	-	1
29	3	-	4
30	4	-	2

Above the table, the description A* for article with total images inputed, B* for the total for wrong words and C* for total of grammatical errors.

). Based on the examples in Figure 3, students who insert images tend to write down the plot according to the images in their composition, which makes the use of images support students in writing narrative essays.

4.2. Student’s Mistakes

The most frequent mistakes in writing words were entering incorrect letters in the same pinyin, such’s:

The word “小时 (xiǎoshí)” becomes “校师 (xiàoshī)”; the word “时候 (shíhou)” becomes “时后 (shíhòu)”; the word “自己 (zìjǐ)” becomes “自巳 (zìsì)”; The word “五 (wǔ)” becomes “无 (wú)”; the word “知道 (zhīdào)” becomes “这道 (zhè dào)”.

From above the examples, this research finds out that grammatical mistakes were dominated by the order of the words:

3. 我们左右在巴厘岛六到七天。 (✓) 我们在巴厘岛六到七天左右。 = We’re in Bali for about six to seven days.   4. 我们都五点就起床了。 (✓) 我们五点就起床了。 = We got up at five o’clock.   5. 因为我必须上大学从早上到下午。 (✓) 因为我必须从早上到下午上大学。 =Because I must go to college from morning to afternoon.

Most students did not pay attention to the context of the sentence, making the sentence’s meaning and intent difficult to understand. Digital images can be used to enhance the student’s cognitive progress. They also increased the skills of students. The scores ranged from 1 to 69%. Only four students did not show any improvement (

Table 2. Students’ exam results before and after inserting images.

NO	A *	B *	C *	NO	A *	B *	C *
1	92	92	=	31	85	98	↑ 13%
2	82	86	↑ 5%	32	90	98	↑ 8%
3	87	88	↑ 2%	33	90	98	↑ 8%
4	78	80	↑ 3%	34	80	98	↑ 18%
5	82	83	↑ 1%	35	90	97	↑ 7%
6	82	85	↑ 4%	36	60	97	↑ 38
7	89	91	↑ 2%	37	20	90	↑ 78%
8	85	85	=	38	40	100	↑ 60%
9	74	76	↑ 3%	39	90	90	=
10	75	77	↑ 3%	40	90	99	↑ 9%
11	87	92	↑ 6%	41	90	97	↑ 7%
12	71	74	↑ 4%	42	60	97	↑ 38
13	91	96	↑ 6%	43	90	99	↑ 9%
14	77	84	↑ 9%	44	85	99	↑ 14%
15	90	96	↑ 7%	45	15	99	↑ 85%
16	71	78	↑ 10%	46	80	96	↑ 17%
17	77	79	↑ 3%	47	90	94	↑ 4%
18	90	96	↑ 6%	48	95	98	↑ 3%
19	60	95	↑ 37	49	85	97	↑ 12%
20	90	96	↑ 6%	50	90	99	↑ 9%
21	90	98	↑ 8%	51	80	96	↑ 17%
22	60	99	↑ 39%	52	60	100	↑ 40
23	90	96	↑ 6%	53	90	98	↑ 8%
24	30	96	↑ 69%	54	85	98	↑ 13%
25	60	99	↑ 39	55	70	95	↑ 26%
26	40	95	↑ 58%
27	50	95	↑ 47%
28	90	99	↑ 9%
29	95	95	=
30	90	98	↑ 8%

A*: score before using digital images; B*: score after using digital images; C*: progress in scores.

).

5. Conclusions

The use of digital images in student essays positively impacted students’ learning abilities, where many students increased their ability to compose from zero to close to 10%. Students needed instructions in composing. Grammar plays an essential role in an essay. It is necessary to increase the number of students to generalize results.