جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "writing" در نشریات گروه "ادبیات و زبان ها"

Educational aids and new educational technologies have transformed learning systems during the last decade. The present study was an attempt to investigate the role of participatory structure and output modality in enhancing Iranian EFL learners’ writing, and examine their perceptions toward participating in writing activities. The population of this study included all female EFL learners (90 learners) at intermediate level at Avayeh Daneshvaran Language Academy in Tabriz. Among them, 63 learners were selected as the sample group after conducting a sample of the PET. The participants were selected through convenient sampling; they included four intact classes. The instruments included two samples of the English language proficiency test of PET, which were administered as homogeneity test, and the pre-tests and posttests of writing. The collected data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and two-way ANCOVA. The researchers analyzed the participants’ responses to the open-ended questionnaire qualitatively. The findings revealed that output modality, participatory structure, and the interaction of these two had no significant effect on EFL learners’ writing skill. Regarding the qualitative section, the findings showed that the learners had positive attitude toward the use of podcasts and summary telling and writing. The findings of the study have significant theoretical and practical significance for teachers, teacher educators, curriculum designers and researchers.

A controversial issue in language teaching is the extent to which engaging learners in the learning process may enhance various aspects of learners’ writing. The current study set out to examine the impact of employing evaluation rubrics as self-assessment devices on advanced EFL learners’ writing features. The current study probed the interactive effect of criteria-referenced self-assessment and task type on the accuracy, lexical resources, and coherence. The participants included 60 advanced EFL learners distributed into two experimental groups (30 male and female learners each). The instruments were two writing tasks as pre-test and post-test, assessed based on IDP rubrics evaluating lexical resources, task response, grammatical range and accuracy, and cohesion and coherence. Two-way ANCOVA was administered to analyze the data. The findings revealed significantly more accurate and coherent writing of the criteria-referenced self-assessment group compared to the teacher-assessment group with no significant difference in lexical resources. Moreover, the findings indicated that the participants performed significantly better on shared tasks compared to independent tasks. However, task and assessment types were found to have no significant interactive effect on the writing features in question. The findings emphasize the practical benefits of criteria-referenced self-assessment and shared tasks in promoting Iranian advanced EFL learners’ writing accuracy and coherence. The implications will be discussed.

The current research sought to explore the impact of cognitive strategies and graphic organizers on Kurdish EFL learners’ writing performance. One hundred fifty Kurdish EFL learners from a state university in Iraq's Kurdistan Region participated in this quasi-experimental research. The students were EFL learners in the TEFL field and belonged to two faculties. The learners were between the ages of 18 and 22. There were both males and females. After homogenizing them with the Oxford Placement Test (OPT), a sample of 99 participants from the study was chosen. The study sample was split into three groups: the experimental group on cognitive strategy, the graphic organizer group, and the control group. Each class had 33 learners. Three instruments were used to collect data: the Oxford placement test, the Pretest, and the Posttest of writing. They had thirteen sessions of treatment. After data collection, students' writing was rated by two raters, and their inter-reliability was calculated. Data analysis by Mancova revealed that both cognitive strategies and graph organizers positively impacted the writing skills of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. However, the group receiving graphic organizer treatment outperformed in its effect on learners' writing performance. The current research findings could assist creators of textbooks, educational organizers, materials developers, language institutions, educators, and students create a more effective environment for learning foreign languages and enhancing writing skills.

With the emergence of new online technologies and computer-mediated language teaching, many recent studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of online peer assessment. The present mixed methods study examined the effect of online peer assessment on Iranian intermediate-level EFL students` writing accuracy. In the quantitative phase of the study, 28 EFL learners studying in an English institute were randomly assigned to two groups and were taught for 14 sessions. The experimental group attended online peer assessment on Wiki as a forum for out-of-classroom discussions regarding English writing, and the control group attended face-to-face peer assessment. To analyze the numerical data collected through a pretest and a posttest, an independent sample t-test was used to investigate the difference between the two group scores before and after the assessments. The results showed that the difference between the posttest means of the experimental group and the control group was significant. Moreover, the results of analyzing the qualitative data, gathered through focus-group interviews, also confirmed the quantitative results, revealing the positive opinions of the interviewees about the role of technology in language learning. Therefore, online peer assessment seems to have benefits that make it worthwhile despite all the difficulties and extra effort of introducing and teaching it to students. The findings may have implications for material designers, language teachers, and language learners.

This paper attempted to explore the impact of dynamic assessment (DA) in improving EFL students’ writing ability. To this end, 60 homogenous pre-intermediate EFL learners from a private high school participated in this study and after administering QPT, the forty students were randomly divided into two equal groups; 20 learners in an experimental group and 20 learners in a control group with the same age and the same English knowledge and background. In the first session of instruction, the pre-test was administered in order to evaluate the learners’ writing ability. Then the control group received the traditional approach and the experimental group was exposed to dynamic assessment instruction to learn how to write with more efficiency. The treatment endured 12 sessions. The results of data analysis showed that the experimental group improved significantly. It is indicated that the dynamic assessment procedure is more efficient in teaching writing than the traditional methods. Furthermore, dynamic assessment enhances L2 writing and can play a crucial role in language learning.

Self-assessment, a form of alternative assessment focusing on learner-centered curricula, autonomy, and needs analysis, has gained prominence recently. Via individual and cooperative self-assessment, EFL learners notice and apply the established standards and criteria that would decide on the accuracy and fluency of their productions, particularly in challenging areas like writing that require detailed forms of assessment. Here, learners’ capacity to self-assess and peer-assess their writings could contribute to their developmental functions. The objective of this study was to explore a specific number of Iranian EFL learners’ perceptions of criteria-referenced self-and-peer assessment in writing through a mixed-method survey. Sixty EFL learners were asked to answer a questionnaire on self-and-peer assessment. Additionally, 15 learners were requested to answer semi-structured interview questions to express their perceptions toward criteria-referenced self-and-peer assessment. For the quantitative phase of the study, a self- and peer-assessment questionnaire developed by Cornelius and Kinghorn (2014) was utilized. The questionnaire's reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, and content validity was confirmed. For the qualitative phase of the study, the researcher developed and conducted a semi-structured interview with five open-ended questions with validated content. The data related to the quantitative and qualitative phases were analyzed through descriptive statistics including the frequency percentage and content analysis methods, respectively. Results revealed learners had positive perceptions towards criteria-referenced self-and peer assessment in language classes. The findings offer beneficial implications for EFL teachers, learners, test developers, and administrators.

This study compares the use of heteroglossic engagement resources in the discussions of MA theses rated as good versus excellent written by Iranian EFL students majoring in TEFL. Engagement, a subsystem of the Appraisal model within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), deals with writers’ authorial voice and how they position their voice with regard to, and engage with, alternative voices and positions in a communicative context. The final corpus of the study consisted of 24 MA theses in TEFL from four universities in Iran divided into two groups of theses rated as good and excellent based on the scores awarded to them and the raters’ reassessment. In addition to a qualitative analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze the data. The results showed that heteroglossic resources were not equally employed by the authors. Although there was a correlation between the use of heteroglossic resources in the theses and their assigned rates, authors of excellent theses utilized more expand values compared to good theses. The qualitative analysis revealed that writers of excellent theses were more successful in expressing their authorial stance through dialogically contractive and expansive resources. Moreover, the results provide evidence that heteroglossic engagement resources are helpful in writing academically acceptable texts.