The Comparative Efficacy of Instruction of Source Text Use in Reading-to-write versus Listening-to-write Integrated Writing Tasks

A growing body of research addresses a variety of issues regarding Integrated Writing (IW), used to assess learners’ academic writing ability in different contexts. However, the effect of source use strategy instruction on learners’ IW ability is still under-researched. To address this niche, the present study, with a pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, compared the effect of an instructional intervention on the improvement of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ source use ability in reading-to-write (RW) and listening-to-write (LW) tasks. To this end, the required data were mainly accumulated from the written tasks of ۵۰ Iranian EFL sophomores studying in two intact classes of Essay Writing, comprising one experimental group, during eight sessions. Both classes had the same instructor and received identical intervention concerning strategies of appropriate source employment in RW and LW tasks assigned to them alternatively with different order across the two classes. The analyses of quantitative and qualitative data may suggest that the instructional intervention could significantly improve participants’ source-based writing, and the contribution of the intervention to the improvement of their RW and LW tasks was similar. Moreover, from among textual borrowing patterns, non-referenced reformulated and modified source materials, and direct quotation were employed more frequently than the others in both tasks. Findings also illuminated the challenging nature of source integration and borrowing, specifically in LW tasks. Finally, pedagogical implications were discussed with a primary emphasis on the need to include the necessary instructional intervention on synthesis writing and source use strategies in writing classes.

کلیدواژه ها:

EFL learners ، Instructional Intervention ، Integrated Writing ، Listening-to-write ، Reading-to-write ، Source Use