The Comparative Impact of Genre Scaffolding and Grammatical Scaffolding on EFL Learners’ Coherence in Writing

This study was an attempt to investigate the comparative impact of genre scaffolding and grammatical scaffolding on EFL learners’ coherence in writing. To fulfill the aforesaid purpose, 60 advanced female EFL learners were selected among a total number of 115 through their performance on a TOEFL and subsequently a TWE. Based on the results, the students were randomly assigned to two experimental groups with 30 participants in each. Both groups underwent the same amount of teaching time during 10 sessions of treatment which included genre scaffolding for the first group and grammatical scaffolding for the second. A posttest (another TWE) was administered at the end of the treatment to both groups and their mean scores on the test were compared through an independent samples t-test. The result (t = 3.712, p = 0.000 < 0.05) led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, thereby demonstrating that the learners in the genre scaffolding group benefited significantly more than those in the grammar scaffolding group in terms of improving their coherence in writing. The effect size was also estimated to be 1.03 which is generally considered a large.