THE EFFECT OF TOPIC INTEREST ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILL AMONG PRE-INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS

Sakineh Behbudi, Hossein Sadeghoghli

Abstract


This study investigated the effect of topic interest on Iranian EFL learners’ writing skill. To fulfil this objective, two intact pre-intermediate classes were selected from a private language institute in Sarab, East Azerbaijan, Iran were selected. The selected participants were then non-randomly divided into two equal groups; experimental group and control group. After that, the topic interest questionnaire was given to the students to assess their interest level in each topic. When the students’ level of interest was specified, the experimental group received five high-interest topics and five low-interest topics were given to the control group. Then, the researcher measured the participants’ English writing skill by administering a researcher-made writing pre-test. In both groups’ classroom, the interested topics were taught to learners in 12 sessions and learners wrote on each topic. After the instruction, a writing post-test was administered to the both groups and finally the data were analyzed by using paired and independent samples t-tests. The obtained results indicated that there was a significant difference between the post-tests of experimental and control groups. The findings indicated that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group (p < .05) on the post-test. The implications of this study can make the teachers aware that topic interest plays an important role in improving writing skill.

 

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interest, topic interest, writing skill, Iranian EFL learners

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v0i0.1649

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