Personal Narratives and Writing Skills

Abstract

This research explores the impact of personal narratives on the development of writing skills in 10th-grade students at Unidad Educativa “Manuela Espejo.” The topic is relevant due to the current emphasis on communicative competence and student-centered learning in English language education. Personal narratives offer an effective strategy to enhance writing performance in ideas, structure, and linguistic accuracy, especially for learners with limited exposure to engaging writing activities. The research followed a pre-experimental design with a sample of 31 students, 15 male and 16 female. A pre-test and a post-test were administered in which students were asked to write a 60-word paragraph, assessed using a rubric that evaluated content, organization, and language use. The intervention included nine instructional sessions that were dedicated to teaching personal narrative writing techniques. The statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS, the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality, the Spearman correlation coefficient, and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test for hypothesis testing. The results revealed a statistically significant improvement in students’ writing abilities after the intervention. In terms of content, students were able to express their ideas more clearly and include more relevant personal information. Regarding organization, their texts showed better structure with appropriate topic sentences, supporting details, and conclusions. Language use also improved, as students demonstrated more accurate grammar, richer vocabulary, and clearer sentence formation. These findings support the rejection of the null hypothesis and confirm that the use of personal narratives is an effective strategy for enhancing writing skills in EFL contexts.