Advantages and Limitations of Theoretical Verbal Production Models for Education

Renée Gagnon 
(Département des sciences de l'éducation, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada)

Abstract: Verbal production models created by Hayes & Flower (1980), Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987) and Hayes (1996) revealed the cognitive processes implied in the writing task. However, those models do not reveal the processes used in the writing task nor the linguistic resources needed in those processes. In education this loophole raises problems in evaluating the writing abilities of the student by the teacher and in the choice of study objects for teaching and learning. Unlike these models, Bronckart’s and collaborators (Bronckart et al., 1985; Bronckart, 1996) promote tools for the teaching and learning of text production whether it be oral or scribal. Indeed, while insisting on the specific linguistic features of the genres of text, his model leads to evaluate the students difficulties and abilities to perform the writing task, giving the instructor hints for intervention. This article aims to present those theoretical oral production models, to show their limits for instruction and to present the one we think best for the instruction of writing in early grades.

Key words: verbal production, theoretical models, instruction briefing, cognitive writing processes, teaching and learning