| Summary: | 碩士 === 東海大學 === 外國語文學系 === 106 === The present study investigated the effects of Dialogue Journal Writing (DJW) on adult EFL learners’ writing motivation in English. It was designed to explore (1) how DJW influenced adult EFL learners’ writing motivation, (2) how teacher feedback in DJs influenced their writing motivation, and (3) what their perceptions of DJW were.
To achieve the purpose, the experimental study recruited eight adult learners who participated in a twelve-week reading club organized by the researcher. They read an article about traveling and wrote two dialogue journal entries every week. Line, a social network application, was used as a tool for exchanging and responding to dialogue journals. Before participating in the project, they filled out background information questionnaires about their English learning histories and attitudes towards English learning and writing. Then, each of them was interviewed by the instructor-researcher during the first, the sixth, and the final weeks of the DJW project. All the semi-structured interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. The participants’ responses acquired from the interviews and the background information questionnaires were analyzed and cross-compared in order to see the changes of their writing motivation. A thematic analysis was performed on the interview data.
The present study found that DJW enhanced most adult learners’ writing motivation. They were motivated to write in English because the DJW project offered them more opportunities to improve and practice English. They also reported that the target language input offered in teacher feedback and the questions based on the content of DJs enhanced their motivation to write more. In addition, keeping DJs on Line had positive influences on their writing motivation because it allowed them to receive and respond to teacher feedback immediately. Finally, all of the participants held favorable attitudes toward DJW because they perceived DJW as a way of improving their English proficiency and making them practice writing regularly.
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