Using nature journaling to motivate Turkish high school students’ writing practice in English: a case study

Abstract

English has long been a lingua franca, providing a common ground for international communication, which stresses the importance on English language teaching. Being able to communicate in writing is a major language skill in which the English language learner must excel. Unfortunately, while students are more inclined to speak and read English, they resist taking the time needed to become proficient in writing. The researcher of this study is an English as a foreign language teacher who has been looking for ways to motivate her students to write more often and regularly in English and who has a passion for nature and the environment. In an attempt to merge these interests, she conducted a case study where, during the 2020-2021 school year, nature journaling was implemented as an extra-curricular activity for her ninth-grade English class. To support the context of nature writing, environmental concepts were also integrated into in-class writing tasks. Action research strategies were used by the researcher who kept a reflective notebook to record her observations while she monitored student writing experiences and conducted focus groups with the participants to gain insights into how much they valued the task of nature journaling. Students’ nature journals were qualitatively analysed through manual coding. Quantitative scales were used to measure students’ nature relatedness, place attachment and systems thinking at the beginning and end of the integration as well as to guide the qualitative content analysis of students’ nature journals. The journals gave insights into students’ environmental awareness and writing experiences. Reflections of both the participants and the researcher showed that nature writing integration is a promising tool that provides young language learners with opportunities to think about their environment while practicing writing in the target language.