scholarly journals The Effect of Comprehensive Explicit Instruction Approach on Arab EFL Students’ Academic Writing Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Wisam Chaleila ◽  
Basem Khalaila
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Instruction Approach

While recent literature has focused extensively on the widely embraced approach of explicit instruction, there is a considerable paucity of research concerning plausible practical frameworks that can demonstrate how such particular approach is implementable in EFL classes. To address the specific writing deficiencies of EFL students, the current study proposes an innovative, comprehensive, practical framework that derives from Fisher & Frey’s explicit instruction approach. As such, an experimental three-stage of pretest-posttest design research took stock of the impact of a modified approach on EFL students’ academic writing performance. The research targeted 44 tertiary Arab-Israeli students enrolled in a two-semester academic writing course. The results of the study revealed that the writing performance of the students improved considerably after being exposed to the modified comprehensive explicit instruction program.

The Impact of Digital Literacy Proficiency on EFL Students' Academic Writing Performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-55
Author(s):  
Chahrazad Hamouma ◽  
Nadia Menezla
Keyword(s):  
Correlation Coefficient ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
High Positive Correlation ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Literacy Proficiency ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Positive Correlation Coefficient ◽  
The Impact

In light of the increasing recognition of digital literacy in learning and education generally, and in English Foreign Language (EFL) instruction specifically, the purpose of this research article is to examine the impact of digital literacy on EFL students' academic writing performance. The subjects of this study were 80 third year EFL students from M'sila University. The research instruments included a digital literacy questionnaire and a writing performance test which were given to the study participants to answer. The relationship between students' digital literacy and their academic writing performance was analyzed using the Spearman's correlation coefficient. The results revealed that there is a high positive correlation coefficient between the research variables, which was statistically significant at the level (α = 0,01). Therefore, it was concluded that digital literacy is an effective factor for the development of English academic writing performance.

scholarly journals Brainstorming Strategy and Writing Performance: Effects and Attitudes

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1084
Author(s):  
Arezoo Omidvari ◽  
Soheila Abedianpour
Keyword(s):  
Writing Skills ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Homogenous Group ◽  
Writing Strategy ◽  
Writing Skill ◽  
Performance Effects ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
The Impact

The study sought to examine the impact of employing brainstorming strategy, as a pre-writing strategy, on advanced EFL students' writing ability. Moreover, the study sought to investigate the attitudes of the participants in terms of the efficacy of brainstorming for developing writing performance. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to two groups participating in Writing II course at Atlas Language Institute in Yasouj, Iran. The highest as well as the lowest achievers were deleted in order to have an almost homogenous group. The participants were randomly assigned to control (No = 30) and experimental (No = 30) groups. Both groups had the same teacher. Based on the results of the pretest and posttest, learners that were treated with brainstorming made significant progress in writing. Furthermore, questionnaire scores indicated that the majority of the learners found brain storming a useful strategy in enhancing their writing skills. The results of the current study highlight the effectiveness of employing brainstorming as a pre-writing strategy in developing EFL students’ writing skill.

scholarly journals Detection of Common Errors in Turkish EFL Students’ Writing through a Corpus Analytic Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Tokdemir Demirel
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
First Year ◽  
Plagiarism Detection ◽  
Writing Difficulties ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Concordance Program

The present study aims to explore Turkish EFL students’ major writing difficulties by analyzing the frequent writing errors in academic essays. Accordingly, the study examined errors in a corpus of 150 academic essays written by Turkish EFL students studying at the Department of English Language and Literature at a public university in Turkey. The essays were written on assigned topics as take home exam papers or assignments in the context of a first year academic writing course. The corpus consisted of essays of various lengths ranging from 500 word essays to 1500 word essays. The essays were compiled into a corpus and analyzed by using a concordance program. The essays were also checked for plagiarism using the online plagiarism detection software and plagiarized essays were excluded from the analysis. Errors were classified by using an error classification system which was organized according to lexico-grammatical categories. The resulting categories consisted of mostly syntactic and lexical categories of error but academic style errors were considered as well. As a result of the analysis, in terms of error categories, the most frequent errors were observed in the verb related error categories. When considered individually, the most frequent errors were observed in noun modification and were mostly interference related.

scholarly journals Innovating Selection and Use of Online Writing Resources for EFL Students: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (09) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistic ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Urban University ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
On Line ◽  
On Line Learning ◽  
Writing Resources

This study reports on how teachers’ systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based selection and use of on-line writing resources impacted students’ perceptions of on-line resources and their writing performance. Through a case study of students from one academic writing course in an urban university in China and primarily qualitative analysis of interviews with students, written artifacts, and students’ reflections, it was found that the selection and use of on-line learning resources, guided by the teacher’s SFL perspective on writing as a meaning-making process, facilitated students’ transition. That is, students gained a principled perspective on the use of on-line resources and were able to use pertinent knowledge in producing effective academic writing. The study concludes that the pedagogical use of on-line resources, when supported by SFL, could transform students’ perception of the value of on-line materials and improve their self-efficacy as academic writers.

scholarly journals Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing: Tertiary students’ perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Suhaimah Bulqiyah ◽  
Moh. Arif Mahbub ◽  
Dyah Ayu Nugraheni
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Writing Difficulties ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Language And Education ◽  
Cognitive Problems

This study is primarily designed for investigating the tertiary students’ perspectives on the writing difficulties of essays. This study was conducted in explanatory research in which quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from the web-based questionnaire and semi-structured interview, then analyzed separately. 21 undergraduate students have enrolled in the survey and 6 of them were invited to the interview section. This research reveals tertiary students' problems in essay writing course are categorized into: affective problems which raise from students’ and lecturers’ attitude while teaching and learning Essay Writing Course, cognitive problems that considered as the difficulties in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and the process of writing, and linguistic problems in the area of lexico-grammar, vocabulary, and the structure of the essay. Due to the findings, those aspects of academic writing should be serious attention for both EFL students and teachers to overcome the problems. The findings of this study have implications for EFL writing course designers as basic data of material improvement and for researchers particularly in the realms of language and education.

scholarly journals Exploring Academic Writing Needs of Indonesian EFL Undergraduate Students

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ratnawati ◽  
Didih Faridah ◽  
Syafiul Anam ◽  
Pratiwi Retnaningdyah
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Private University ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Need Analysis ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
General Skills ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
The University

Academic writing is noteworthy competence to be accomplished for English as a foreign language (EFL) students to fulfill their academic needs at the university. To do so, Indonesian tertiary universities accommodate and foster this competence using academic writing course. The study, therefore, sought to look into: 1. what undergraduate EFL students’ perceptions of the importance of academic writing to their current study and future career, 2. what the students’ perceptions of the difficulties of academic writing, 3. what the students’ attitudes towards their previous and future academic writing courses. The present study investigates students’ needs emerging in academic writing during classroom practices to gain insightful and profound perspectives for forthcoming needs of the course. Data were collected through a five scaled questionnaire of need analysis distributed to thirty-four EFL students from a private university, and a focus group interview involving nine participants. Results indicate 61% (Mdifficulties=3.05) of students faced difficulties in both general skills and language problems of academic writing and a new course was expected to provide moves/steps for writing the sections in a research article. The present study then suggests that e-database resources are needed for academic papers models and references hence its efficiency and flexibility in prospective academic writing.

scholarly journals Exploring the Impact of Peer Assessment on EFL Students’ Writing Performance

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-95
Author(s):  
Eleni Meletiadou
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
School Year ◽  
Greek Cypriot ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
The Impact

Lately, researchers have expressed their concern for EFL students’ poor writing performance and exam failure. They have indicated that peer assessment (PA) can be successfully employed to support a better integration of teaching/instruction with assessment of progress in learning. Bearing this in mind, the current study employed a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design and aimed to explore the effect of PA on 200 Greek Cypriot EFL students’ writing performance. These adolescent learners attended two writing classes per week (90 minutes) for a full school year. Teachers received training in PA skills and then had to train their own students. Students were asked to use a PA rubric which was also devised by the researcher but negotiated between the students and their teachers during the training sessions. Paired T-tests were performed to investigate whether students in the control (n=100 students and 10 teachers) and the experimental groups (n=100 students and 10 teachers) enhanced their writing performance comparing their pre- to post-test scores. The study outcomes indicated that PA could have a moderately positive impact on students’ writing performance. The use of PA improved students’ writing performance in 5 aspects: mechanics, organisation, content, focus, and vocabulary and language use. In response to the need for more experimentation, this study provides recommendations for PA implementation in secondary school EFL writing classes which enable teachers to improve students’ writing performance.

scholarly journals Learning from home environment: Academic writing course for EFL undergraduates through Google Classroom application

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 710-725
Author(s):  
Amrina Rosyada ◽  
Hanna Sundari
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Education Program ◽  
English Education ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
English Speaking

Learning academic writing seems to be a great challenge for most English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in non-native English-speaking countries, including in Indonesia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue appears to be more challenging where teachers are persuaded to learn from their home environment (LHE). Several online applications are freely available, and one of the most common applications is Google Classroom. However, the use of such application towards the students’ performance and perception remains understudied. This research aimed at exploring the practices of Google Classroom in facilitating the Academic Writing course of EFL undergraduates. Engaged by 96 participants of third-year students in the English Education Program, the research conducted an explanatory sequential research design by correlating the results data on writing assignments and a set of questionnaires. The findings indicated a significant correlation between using Google Classroom and the students’ writing performance. Moreover, most students expressed their satisfaction with Google Classroom’s practical features to get involved in the academic writing course. The students were satisfied with Google Classroom’s features that were easy to be recognized and easy to be operated. The Google Classroom features also provide clear instructions, practical directions, and the most valuable feature, that is assignment reminders for the students. It can be said that using Google Classroom in the EFL academic writing course at higher education is a great experience and brings great advantages to students’ outcomes.

scholarly journals An Investigation of Transfer of Learning in an English-for-Specific-Academic Writing Course: Teaching for Transfer

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-184
Author(s):  
Kalthoum Kassab
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Transfer Of Learning ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Learning Transfer ◽  
Far Transfer ◽  
Near Transfer ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Transfer Principles

Despite its importance, transfer of learning is still an under-explored area of research in EAP contexts. The few EAP studies that investigated this phenomenon were mostly conducted in EGAP contexts. Studies conducted in ESAP contexts and informed by learning transfer theories are still rare. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of a teaching-for-transfer ESAP writing course on students’ ability to transfer their new learning to their subject-specific courses in a Tunisian university. The ESAP course design drew on SFL genre theories and teaching-for-transfer principles. Perkins and Salomon’s (1988) hugging and bridging strategies were blended into instruction in order to maximize the chances for learning transfer to occur. In addition, elements of Barnett and Ceci’s (2002) transfer taxonomy were used to distinguish between near transfer and far transfer. A longitudinal quantitative research design, using repeated measures, was followed. Students’ authentic written exams from the ESAP writing course and from three content subjects were analyzed in order to investigate the impact of instruction on learning transfer overtime. Results showed that near transfer occurred quite frequently while far transfer occurred in a constricted manner. The findings suggest that an ESAP writing course that blends teaching-for-transfer principles increases the chances for learning transfer to occur. However, the success of such courses depends on the close collaboration between the writing teachers and the disciplinary lecturers.

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