Problem-Based Learning in English Writing Classroom: A Study on Students' Perceptions toward Its Impact

Abstract

The teaching and learning of English today which emphasizes more on the communicative and cooperative approaches has led to the emergence of communicative, cooperative teaching and learning methods. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), an approach which utilizes a real-world problem as the stimulus for learning enables students to actively engage in analyzing a problem, finding the causes and the effects, and proposing the best solution to the problem. In that way, students build shared knowledge on the issue and develop their problem-solving as well as their communication skills. This study investigates the undergraduate students’ perceptions toward learning with PBL in an argumentative writing course during a semester. The instrument employed is a perception questionnaire which has been validated and tried-out. The findings of the study show that the students had positive perceptions on the implementation of the Problem-Based writing instruction as indicated by the overall mean score of the responses that was 83.74 which was categorized as positive perception. Finally, the study suggests that future research is carried out by involving larger sample and investigating teachers’ perceptions to obtain more conclusive findings on the impacts of PBL on language learning.