The Effect of Writing Prompts on EFL Writing Performance

• Main Authors: Chia-Ling Liu, 留家凌
• Other Authors: Wen-Ying Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07850574060311462365

碩士 === 臺北市立教育大學 === 英語教學系碩士班 === 96 === The study aims to investigate the effect of the writing prompt on the EFL senior high school students’ English writing performance. The writing performance examined includes the following four components: overall score, syntactic complexity, writing accuracy, and vocabulary richness. Three types of writing prompts are examined: picture prompt (P), picture plus verbal prompt (PV), and verbal prompt (V). The participants of the current study were 115 third-year senior high school students at one school in Hualien city. The participants’ English proficiency level was similar based on their scores of a mock test at school. The 115 participants were randomly assigned to one of the 3 writing prompt groups in 3 writing sections, and each participant had to write three different writing rhetorical modes, including narrative, descriptive, and expository. There were 50 minutes in each writing section. The results indicated that the writing prompt only had the significant effect on one level of vocabulary richness. Moreover, the rhetorical mode significantly affected all components of participants’ writing performance, except the writing accuracy measured by raters and one level of vocabulary richness. Furthermore, the interaction effect between the writing prompt and the rhetorical mode was only significant in one level of vocabulary richness. Therefore, the findings of the current study show that the writing prompt generally does not have the significant effect on writers’ writing performance. In contrast, the writing rhetorical mode tends to play an important role on the writers’ writing performance.