The Effect of Collaborative Prewriting Discussions on L2 Writing: Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF)

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 18-30
Author(s):  
Mohammad Naghavi ◽  
Mahboubeh Nakhleh

The present study essayed to investigate the impact of collaborative pre-writing discussions on three aspects of writing skill namely, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). To reach this goal, 60 intermediate male EFL learners ranging from 22 to 28 years at Shahid Beheshti Language Center in Tehran, Iran participated in the study. For the purpose of homogeneity, the standardized English Proficiency Test (Preliminary English Test) was administered to 88 students and they were divided into two intact experimental and control groups. The experimental group, which was divided into six groups of five was exposed to and performed on a-40- minute essay writing tasks held two sessions per week lasting ninety-minutes for ten weeks with collaborative pre-writing discussions. Moreover, the students in experimental group were required to complete a questionnaire at the end of the study to find out about their feelings regarding prewriting discussions prior to writing in L2. The control group received the same materials and teacher as experimental group, except for, there was no collaborative pre-writing discussions to write the essays. After the raters were trained and familiarized with the rating process, the essays by both groups were collected and scored holistically based on the assessment measure provided to the two raters. In order to provide plausible answers to the research questions posed above, a series of one way ANOVA was employed to evaluate the participants' overall performance in the two conditions. The results indicated that collaborative pre-writing discussions were superior to mainstream methods. Thus, the findings can have an immediate implication for EFL teachers and practitioners who are searching for cutting edge ways of developing EFL learners' writing performance.

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 172
Author(s):  
Waqar Ahmad ◽  
Zuraina Ali ◽  
Muhammad Aslam Sipra ◽  
Imtiaz Hassan Taj

Smartboards, which are now widely used in the teaching and learning process in Saudi Arabia, have turned the traditional environments of the classrooms, especially the EFL classrooms to be more interesting and encouraging. Literature reviews suggest that Saudi students usually lack motivation for studying English as a foreign language. This study tends to investigate the impact of Smartboards on preparatory year EFL learners motivation at a Saudi university. Two intact groups were selected, in which one was termed as experimental and the second as control group. The experimental group was taught using the Smartboard while the control group was taught with the traditional whiteboard, pen and book method. The treatment was given for seven weeks. A questionnaire was administered to both the groups at the beginning and the end of the study. The data was analysed using the SPSS and the results showed that there was significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of motivation.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeedeh Rajayi ◽  
Mahpareh Poorahmadi ◽  
Mahpare Poorahmadi

A considerable body of research has been conducted on effective vocabulary instruction to improve vocabularylearning. However, no research has been done to empirically document the link between teaching vocabulary through“Kik’ application and vocabulary learning. Thus, this study was conducted to fill this gap in research related to thisphenomenon. To this effect, 61 intermediate EFL learners from Joyandegan language institute were selected throughconvenience sampling and randomly assigned to two groups; experimental and control group. In this pretest, posttestexperimental study, only the experimental group received training through “Kik” application. The comparison of thescores of Teacher Made Vocabulary Test showed that the scores of experimental group were higher than those of thecontrol group. The comparison of the scores of Teacher Made Vocabulary Test showed that the scores ofexperimental group were higher than those of the control group. This provided a statistically significant relationshipbetween the independent variable, teaching vocabulary through “Kik” application, and vocabulary learning which isthe dependent variable. The results of this study point to a probability that on using of “Kik” for teaching vocabularyand the results of this study showed that using “Kik” for teaching can have a significant impact on EFL learners’vocabulary learning.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
aprilia chasanah ◽  
Jessica Paulima Simanullang ◽  
Indah Karina Sianturi ◽  
Avivah Adinda Putri ◽  
sri wahyuni

This journal aims to find the impact of tablet use on students’ mastery of grammar skills. In order to answer the research questions, the authors held the pre-test and post-test for two groups labelled as the experimental group and control group. The experimental group is the groups that using tablet, while the control group is the group that using textbooks in learning grammar. The results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the grammar achievement scores of the students in both groups. The findings also show that the instructor emphasized the influence of tablet use on learner autonomy, digital distraction, and network connection. Students indicated that tablets can be supplementary yet it shouldn’t replace the basic course materials such as textbooks and workbooks.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Hamed Abbasi Mojdehi ◽  
Davood Taghipour Bazargani

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of applying individualized homework assignments on Iranian intermediate level EFL learners’ motivation. To achieve this objective, 60 learners in the 16-21 age range who were studying at two private language institutes in Rasht, Iran, were selected from 122 participants based on their performance on QPT. The participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. A pretest piloted before with an accepted reliability index was administered to both groups. Next, the experimental group received the treatment for 20 sessions (doing homework materials specifically designed based on each learner’s interests and preferred learning style). Meanwhile, the control group received a placebo which was the use of exercises in the workbook of the coursebook American English File 3 (Second Edition) as homework assignments. The posttest of motivation was then administered to both groups. The results showed significantly higher scores on motivation test for experimental group at the end of the course. Based on the findings of this study, language teachers can utilize individualized homework assignments to motivate their learners for doing their homework more willingly.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 184
Author(s):  
Sumarsih Sumarsih

This paper is aimed at describing the impact of Shadowing Technique on students’ listening skills achievement. Therefore, the experimental research was conducted and the techniques on collecting the data were administrating pre- and post- tests to the experiment and control groups, which consisted of 30 university students in each group. Then, t-test and ANCOVA were applied on analyzing the data, then to find the impact of shadowing technique on EFL learners’ listening skill achievements in English Department of Universitas Negeri Medan (UNIMED), Indonesia. As a result, there was a significant difference between the mean of experimental and control groups (F = 8.98, p=. 004 < .05). In addition, there was a significant effect of applying shadowing technique on students’ listening skill achievements (F=56.10, p=0.00<0.05) and the experimental group grammatically outperformed the control group. In conclusion, the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Parinaz Nassirdoost ◽  
Behdokht Mall-Amiri

<p>The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of portfolio assessment on EFL learners’ vocabulary achievement and motivation. To carry out the study, 90 female learners of Marefat language school located in Maragheh, Iran were non-randomly selected. They took a Preliminary English Test (PET) test and among these 90 participants 60 students aged between15 and 20 were selected as homogenous samples. These 60 intermediate learners were the main participants of this study. Then, they were randomly put into experimental and control groups. The participants were checked for not knowing the intended vocabulary items intended to be taught and tested in the pre-test. Also, both groups were shown to be homogeneous in terms of their motivation. Both control and experimental groups attended 12 sessions with the same instructional material. The control group received the traditional assessment while the experimental group received portfolio assessment, i.e., they were asked to make portfolios. They were given two piloted post-tests of vocabulary achievement and motivation immediately after treatment sessions. Quantitative analysis revealed that the use of portfolio assessment had a significant effect on EFL learners’ vocabulary achievement but; it did not affect EFL learners’ motivation level. Findings suggest that teachers can benefit from portfolios to arm the learners with appropriate material leading to their improvement in language skills.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-272
Author(s):  
Behnoosh Heshmat Ghahderijani

Background/Purpose: Recently, corrective feedback (CF) has gained considerable importance in language teaching research. Up until now, there has been less attention to the use of CF in an Iranian context.  This current study aims at investigating the impact of corrective feedback on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ Complexity (C), Accuracy (A), and Fluency (F) in their writing production.   Methodology: After administering an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT), the researcher selected 30 Iranian intermediate learners at a private English language institute in Isfahan, Iran and divided them into two groups of 15 randomly. An Oxford placement test was run to make sure that the two groups were homogenous. A series of writing tasks were developed to examine the participants’ performance in writing. The experimental group attended the class in which CF was performed where they received feedback from the teachers and also their partners in the class (by crossing out and explaining) during the writing tasks on how to use the correct forms of the words and tenses. The control group attended the class in which CF was performed briefly. At the end of the study, all subjects participated in paragraph writing. To compare the group means for the study, a test analysis was performed. The difference between the experimental and the control group was considered to be important.   Findings: The results of Independent and samples t tests revealed that the participants in the experimental group outperformed the ones in the control group in writing production. The results clearly indicated that the participants who received CF did better than those who did not. Therefore, the findings generally revealed that CF had a significant effect on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ writing complexity, accuracy, and fluency.   Contributions: This study has multiple benefits for language learners and teachers. Utilizing CF in writing classes can be a practical way to improve students’ proficiency and writing skill. In addition, this study draws attention to the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF) of written production.   Keywords: Corrective feedback, complexity, accuracy, fluency, Iranian Intermediate EFL learners.   Cite as: Ghahderijani, B. H. (2021). The impact of corrective feedback on Iranian EFL learners’ writing complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(2), 250-272. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss2pp250-272


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402110071
Author(s):  
Saleh Alharthi

Writing is an intricate process that encompasses various factors and is a key skill for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. Thus, writing assignments are vital for any curriculum. One of the essential aspects of effective writing includes good grammar knowledge. Advocates of process writing argue that a free-writing journal is a practical approach to teaching EFL students writing. This study is intended to examine the impact of the free-writing journal on EFL learners. This study was conducted on 80 students from a writing course at the University. Thirty-five students were randomly selected to join the free-writing program—the experimental group—and 45 students were kept in their regular structured writing program—the control group. The experimental group selected topics of interest to them and was encouraged to write in English freely without concern for errors, whereas the control group followed a regular structured writing program where the topics were selected for them and they wrote following a clear guideline. Five major areas were investigated to evaluate students’ progress: the number of words written, spelling, capitalization, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 students of the experimental group to elicit their perception of the free-writing program. According to the analysis, students in the free-writing program acquired better grammar acquisition than the control group. The researcher also observed students’ perception of free-writing at the end of the study and found that free-writing improved their writing skills.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Islam Namazian Doost ◽  
Soheila Tahmasbi

This study aims to investigate the possible effects of peripheral learning on elementary EFL learners’ grammar improvement: the case of prepositions of time and place. Two elementary classes were selected as experimental and control groups. Before beginning the treatment, a grammar test was administered to both the groups as a pre-test. Then, as treatment, the experimental group was exposed to realia, pictures, posters and texts, while the control group was not. After term-long treatment of 10 weeks, the two groups received the same grammar test as post-test. The results of t-test showed that the experimental group improved their grammar ability, i.e., knowledge of prepositions of time and place more than their friends in the control group. The finding of the study may open an optional path for teachers to include some peripheral materials in their teaching environment to further invest on unconscious learning abilities of the students.   Keywords: Peripheral learning, reposition of time, prepositions of place, grammar.


Author(s):  
Mojtaba Maghsoudi ◽  
Sahar Saeedi

This study presents the findings of an investigation of the impact of teacher error corrective feedback on 180 field-dependent/ field-independent (FD/FI) male and female pre-intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners writing skill. The participants were separated into two experimental groups and one control group and were asked to write three paragraphs of about 100-150 words around three different topics, each in odd days of a week; then they received direct (in experimental group 1), indirect (in experimental group 2) and no correction feedback (in control group). The results based on Mean Scores, Standard Deviation, Multivariate Analyses and 1-way ANOVA showed that there was not any significant difference between the FD/FI learners' writing skill scores who had received corrective feedback on their errors; however, as indicated by the second finding of the present study it would be better to feedback field-dependent/-independent EFL learners indirectly. It was also indicated that, learners' learning styles had made a significant change in their writing skill scores.


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