Effectiveness of journal writing on the development of writing fluency, complexity and accuracy of ESL students

النوع : Mémoire

The present study aims at investigating the effect of journal writing on the development of the writing of first-year EFL (English as a foreign language) students at a private university. The subjects (n=60) were expected to write personal and impersonal journals twice a week over a period of a semester or almost 14 consecutive weeks. The topics of the personal journals were not assigned. Students wrote freely about any topic they wanted. However, the topics of the impersonal journals were assigned by the teacher based on course content. Data were collected through administering two writing tests: a 30-minute pretest and a 30-minute post-test. In addition to the pretest and post-test, students’ journals were divided into three spans: first, mid and last. Two journals were chosen from each span, one personal and another impersonal. No training was given and no correction of journals was provided. Journals were collected every two weeks and the teacher commented on them only concerning fluency, complexity and accuracy. The results of the two tests and the six journals were analyzed using the t-unit analysis and three paired sample t-tests. Results showed that students’ writing improved more in the areas of fluency and complexity than in the area of accuracy. Limitations of the study were discussed and recommendations for future research were made.