Writing is feared not only by weak writers; but also good writers. This is because the process of writing involves many stages. The process of writing requires the writer to go through many drafts. A complete cycle of the writing process includes the planning stage, the translation stage and also the reviewing stage. Traditionally, writing instructors include the process of face-to-face writing conferences when discussing the changes to be made on the drafts. With the online mode, the teaching of writing has taken a new turn by settling with online teaching of writing with face-to-face writing conferences converted to online writing conferences. The process of learning to write may still bring fear to some writers especially now that the learning is done online. The use of colours in learning has a positive impact on the learners. If writing brings anxiety and fear to writers and colours help to reduce stress during learning, can colours be used to reduce fear in writing? This study is done to explore the use of colours in learning academic writing. Learner are exposed the learning of writing using colours via online. Findings showed that in online learning writers perceive using the coloured scaffolds as the most positive aspect of the activity. They also put high emphasis on the translating and review stage in their online academic writing. Writers also felt that they should spend minimum time for the planning of the essay. The findings in this study bear interesting pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of academic writing online. Specifically, this new approach can help reduce stress among both writing teachers by using colourful versions of the essay. This colourful approach can also aid future writing teachers to add more fun (colours) when doing writing conferences with writers online.
Bulqiyah, S., Mahbub, M. A., & Nugraheni, D. A. (2021) Investigating Writing Difficulties in Essay Writing: Tertiary Students’ Perspectives. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, Vol 4(1), pp 61-73. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1296404.pdf
Carolan, F., & Kyppo, A. (2015). Teaching process writing in an online environment. In J. Jalkanen, E. Jokinen, & P. Taalas (Eds), Voices of pedagogical development - Expanding, enhancing and exploring higher education language learning (pp. 13-30). Dublin: Research-publishing.net. doi:10.14705/rpnet.2015.000285
Diliduuzgun, S. (2013). The effect of process writing activities on the writing skills of prospective Turkish teachers. Egitim Arastirmalari -Eurasion Journal of Educational Research,52, 189-210. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060398.pdf
Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1981). A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing. College Composition and Communication, Vol 31(21), pp 21-32. Retrieved from
https://www.jstor.org/stable/356600
Hall, R. H., and Sidiq-Hall,M. A. (1994) The Effect of Students Colour Coding of Knowledge maps and Test Anxiety on Student learning. Journal of Experimental Education, Vol 62(4), pp 291-301. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20152423
Khan, J., & Liu, C. (2020) The impact of colours on human memory in learning English collocations: evidence from south Asian tertiary ESL students. Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ.5, 17 .https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-020-00098-8
Nurdiansyah, D. M. R., Asyid, S. A., and Parmawati, A. (2019) Using Colour Coding to Improve Students’ English Vocabulary Ability. Project-Professional Journal of English Education. Vol 2(3), pp 357-362. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.22460/project.v2i3.p358-363.
Olurinola, O., & Tayo, O. (2015). Colour in learning : Its’s Effects on the Retention Rate of Graduate Students. Journal of Education and Practice, Vol 6(14), pp 1-5. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1080132.pdf
Rahmat, N. H., Sukimin, I. S., Taib, S. A., Amir, N., & Abidin, N. S. Z. (2022) Investigating Cognitive Presence in Learning Academic Writing Online. International Journal of Academic Research in Business & Social Sciences, Vol 12(1), pp 2167-2178. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v12-i1/12191
Rahmat, N. H. (2021) Writers’ Beliefs and Expectations in Academic Writing: Towards a Model of Writing Prophecies. European Journal of English language Teaching, Vol 6(4), pp 48-58. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v6i4.3737
Rahmat, N. H. (2020) Knowledge Transforming in Writing: An Analysis of Read-to-Write Process. European Journal of English Language Teaching, Vol 5(4), pp 1-16. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v5i4.3103
Rahmat, N. H. (2019) Problems with Rhetorical Problems among Academic Writers. American Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 4(4), pp 506-515. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.20448/801.44.506.515
Rahmat, N. H. (2018) Scaffolding Colour Codes and SAW Approach in ESL Academic Writing. European Journal of English Language Teaching, Vol 491), pp 22-34. Retrieved from https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejel/article/view/1881
Singh, M. K. M. (2019) Academic Reading and Writing Challenges among International EFL Master’s Students in a Malaysian University: The Voice of Lecturers. Journal of International Students, Vol 994), pp 972-992. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1234733.pdf.
In-Text Citation: (Abidin et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Abidin, N. S. Z., Rahmat, N. H., Razlan, Z., Sim, M. S., Adam, S., & Kamarulzaman, M. H. (2022). Colour Your Writing: The Case for Online Learning. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 12(7), 68– 80.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
