• فهرس المقالات writing proficiency

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        1 - The Effects of Instructor’s Comments on Our Academic Writing: ‎The Case of Iranian M. A. Students of TEFL
        Hamed Zarabi Nima Yamrali Nadia Gharani
        Academic writing is a significant component of all graduate programs, but the majority of students lack basic writing skills. This problem is especially frustrating for M.A. students of TEFL who have to write academic articles in English because it necessitates time-con أکثر
        Academic writing is a significant component of all graduate programs, but the majority of students lack basic writing skills. This problem is especially frustrating for M.A. students of TEFL who have to write academic articles in English because it necessitates time-consuming, extracurricular work that can occasionally be infuriating. The present study was carried out in the form of an action research project to explore the impact of process-based teaching of writing on the attitudes of 10 Iranian M. A. candidates of TEFL towards writing academically. The participants were TEFL candidates in Gonbad Kavoos, Iran. A qualitative method employing a collaborative action research model was used to find out how Iranian M. A. students of TEFL viewed the process writing approach. Phases of the course's procedure included receiving and putting into practice the instructor’s feedback on the texts' rationality, content, consistency, tone, and grammar and sending their finished writing assignments by deadlines. Each student had a schedule for in-person discussions about their progress. According to the results, the students believed that the teaching method helped them improve their writing abilities. The implications include creating a forum for oral feedback between teachers and students to supplement written feedback, fostering a sense of responsibility in students by helping them to self-organize, and recognizing that graduate students may require assistance with very fundamental writing abilities and knowledge. تفاصيل المقالة
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        2 - The Relationship Among Iranian Advanced EFL Learners’ Speaking, Writing, And Grammatical Competence
        حامد ضرابی نیما یمرلی نادیا قرنی
        This study examined the correlation between advanced EFL students' syntactic knowledge ‎and their writing and speaking proficiency to determine whether students' syntactic ‎knowledge can influence their productive skills. A total of 50 advanced students aged &lr أکثر
        This study examined the correlation between advanced EFL students' syntactic knowledge ‎and their writing and speaking proficiency to determine whether students' syntactic ‎knowledge can influence their productive skills. A total of 50 advanced students aged ‎between 18 and 25 were chosen purposefully to take part in the study. Four tests, including a ‎placement test, a syntax test from Oxford University Press, a writing test, and one test for ‎speaking proficiency were employed to collect the required data. Because the data for this ‎study were quantitative, a correlational/descriptive design was chosen for the data to be ‎analyzed. The researcher then decided to find a correlation between the students' writing ‎and speaking scores and their syntax scores based on the obtained data. Both the t-test and ‎the Pearson correlation demonstrated that there is no real correlation between the syntactic, ‎speaking, and writing proficiency of the students. Further findings showed that there is no ‎difference between the relationship between syntactic knowledge and speaking proficiency ‎and the relationship between syntactic knowledge and writing proficiency. The implication ‎of this study is that grammatical competence is not a valid predictor for the proficiency of ‎students in writing and speaking courses. If a student’s grammatical competence is low, his ‎proficiency in writing and speaking can still be average or even above average depending on ‎the process of assessing these skills. Additionally, learners must understand that possessing ‎a strong grasp of grammatical knowledge does not inevitably ensure their ability to produce ‎language effectively in spoken or written form.‎ تفاصيل المقالة
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        3 - Interactionist and Interventionist Dynamic Assessment Approaches to Teaching Argumentative Writing: Do Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency Develop?
        آیدا رحمانی فرهیخته مژگان رشتچی مسعود یزدانی مقدم
        Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) are measures of language proficiency in productive skills. This study with a non-equivalent control group pretest-post-test design explored whether Dynamic Assessment (DA) procedures enhances EFL teachers' writing CAF. Three 22-me أکثر
        Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) are measures of language proficiency in productive skills. This study with a non-equivalent control group pretest-post-test design explored whether Dynamic Assessment (DA) procedures enhances EFL teachers' writing CAF. Three 22-member groups of homogeneous teachers were randomly assigned to one control group (Non-DA), an interactionist DA group (IA-DAG), and an interventionist DA group (IV-DAG). After the nine-session treatment, the study groups took a writing post-test. A one-way ANOVA test showed that the experimental groups outperformed the control group, although no significant differences were found between DA groups. Besides, no statistically significant differences were found between the groups' writing complexity. Considering accuracy, IA-DAG outperformed Non-DAG whereas no significant differences were observed between the experimental groups and between IV-DAG and Non-DAG. Fluency measures showed the superiority of DA groups to the control group. The first conclusion was that DA processes have a decisive role in improving writing skills and the CAF triad. Second, CAF components do not develop in a linear process, and employing DA procedures can be useful for its improvement. The paper has implications for language teachers and SLA researchers. تفاصيل المقالة
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        4 - EFL Learners’ Writing Progress through Collocation Awareness-raising Approach: An analytic assessment
        Elaheh Hamed Mahvelati
        There is insufficient rigorous research examining which features of EFL/ESL learners’ writing can be improved through their awareness/knowledge of collocation. This study, therefore, addressed this issue and examined the effect of this awareness on Iranian EFL lea أکثر
        There is insufficient rigorous research examining which features of EFL/ESL learners’ writing can be improved through their awareness/knowledge of collocation. This study, therefore, addressed this issue and examined the effect of this awareness on Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance with respect to the specific features of each writing sub-component (i.e., content, organization, vocabulary and language use) in the short and long term. The study was a quasi-experimental using a within- and between-group approach utilizing a pre-test/post-test design with a control group supplemented with the qualitative information obtained from the interviews with the writing raters. The results showed that developing knowledge/awareness of collocations effectively improved the participants’ quality of writing in terms of ‘vocabulary’, ‘organization’ and ‘language use’. A deeper analysis of the results revealed that the observed improvements in these sub-components were in terms of some particular features: the range of sophistication, lexical choice and usage; succinctness, fluency and clarity of the expressed ideas; and the accuracy of agreement, tense and prepositions. In addition, the sub-findings emerging from the results accentuated the significance of instructional intervention, in general, and first language-second language contrastive analysis, in particular, in helping L2 learners notice, note and incorporate collocations in their output. تفاصيل المقالة
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        5 - The Impact of Using Hyland's Mitigation Strategies on EFL Learners' Writing Ability: A socio-cultural perspective
        Shahram Afraz
        This research chiefly focused on the application of mitigation strategies and traditional form of feedback in writing development of the fifth semester University students majoring in TEFL and English Translation fields based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in أکثر
        This research chiefly focused on the application of mitigation strategies and traditional form of feedback in writing development of the fifth semester University students majoring in TEFL and English Translation fields based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in general and the notion of “Zone of Proximal Development” in particular. To that end, this study relied on a pre-posttest experimental design which was mediated by different written types of feedback such as mitigation strategies vs. error correction to find out if any gains in writing development of participants could be achieved. It is to be noted that participants of this inquiry were 125 fifth semester university students who were chosen and assigned to four experimental and one control groups. The materials of this study consisted of a textbook called Writing Power by Nancy White (2002) that the teacher taught during the course of instruction; a standard writing test of IELTS (2007) as a pretest; another standard writing test of IELTS (2007) as a posttest. The results showed that although homogeneity among the groups was observed on the pretest, writing scores of those groups which received corrective feedback and paired comments outscored those of the other groups. On the other hand, the interrogative forms and personal attributions had the least increase from the pretest to the posttest. Hence, it is recommended that some teacher training courses regarding the appropriate use of these strategies be held in educational settings in a way that teachers can apply these techniques in the best possible ways in their writing classes. تفاصيل المقالة
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        6 - Pedagogical Utility of Cooperative Writing Technique through Performance-oriented Classroom Structure
        Nafiseh Hosseinpour Reza Biria Ehsan Rezvani
        There is controversy on the conditions under which cooperative learning methods can improve academic achievement. Group-specific motivational aspects might contribute to the effectiveness of cooperative learning among which classroom goal structures were focused on. Mor أکثر
        There is controversy on the conditions under which cooperative learning methods can improve academic achievement. Group-specific motivational aspects might contribute to the effectiveness of cooperative learning among which classroom goal structures were focused on. More specifically, the study aimed at investigating the efficiency of cooperative writing technique through performance versus mastery-oriented classroom goal structures in improving academic writing of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To this end, 83 intermediate EFL learners took part in this quasi-experimental pretest, post-test study. The participants were required to write a 5-paragraph essay for pretest and post-test. The collected data was analyzed based on an analytic writing rubric (Hedgcock & Leftkowitz, 1992). The results of one-way ANOVA tests indicated that the experimental group which practiced cooperative writing through performance goal orientation outperformed the individual and mastery-oriented classes. It was concluded that performance goal orientation, between-groups competition, and extrinsic motivation, can help EFL teachers in setting a more effective classroom structure for cooperative writing practices to improve the writing proficiency of L2 learners. تفاصيل المقالة
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        7 - Hidden Reasons behind the Plagiarism of Iranian TEFL University Students in Their Written Studies: A Qualitative Study
        Vahid Ghorbani Mehrnoosh Mashmool Golshad Daliche Ata Hamed Zarabi
        In recent years, the issue of plagiarism has received a lot of attention from the academic world. However, few studies have been conducted in the area of detecting why students will be drawn into such a hateful action. The factors that overtly or covertly contribute to أکثر
        In recent years, the issue of plagiarism has received a lot of attention from the academic world. However, few studies have been conducted in the area of detecting why students will be drawn into such a hateful action. The factors that overtly or covertly contribute to the growth of plagiarism among graduate TEFL students in Iran were investigated in this study. In order to accomplish this, the researchers conducted a semi-structured interview with 20 graduate students studying English language teaching to ascertain their perceptions of the underlying causes of plagiarism. Based on the data collected from the content analysis procedure, the main causes of plagiarism among TEFL students include ‘low English proficiency’, ‘lack of time’, ‘lack of support from the instructor’, ‘lack of interest in the topic, ‘laziness or a lack of motivation’, and ‘the use of science as a market for money making. The current study is of high significance since it has vital implications for academics teaching in higher education, TEFL university students, curriculum developers, and EAP/ESP specialists. تفاصيل المقالة
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        8 - The Effect of the Modified Cloze Procedure on the Writing Proficien-cy of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners
        Hossein Vosoughi Parisa Farazmand
        The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of modified cloze procedure on writing proficiency of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 110 participants studying at Semnan University majoring in English literature were tes أکثر
        The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of modified cloze procedure on writing proficiency of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 110 participants studying at Semnan University majoring in English literature were tested on CELT proficiency test. 65 participants who were found to be homogenous were selected and assigned randomly to two groups of 32 and 33, one as experimental group and the other as a control group. Then, both groups were tested on a composition as a pre-test in the first session. During 15 minutes of each session the students in both groups were provided with explicit explanations about methods of paragraph development. After instructors teaching, the experimental group was provided with a cloze passage as a prewriting activity. Then they were asked to write their own paragraph similar to the cloze passage in terms of topic and method of development. On the other hand, the participants of the control group had no treatment. They were given a topic each session about which they wrote a composition. The given topics were similar to those of the experimental group. At the end of the term, the two groups were post-tested given the same topic of the pretest to write a composition (post-test). The papers of both groups in pre-test and post-test were assessed by the researcher and two other raters. In order to estimate the degree of relationship between the scores given by the raters to the first and last compositions of both groups, a correlation coefficient test (the Pearson product moment correlation) was adapted. Then the means of both groups were compared through the application of a t- test. The result indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between the performances of both groups. It was concluded that the participants who received cloze passages on writing, outperformed those who did not in writing. تفاصيل المقالة