Acceso usuarios
Zahra Babaluie, Mohadeseh Amini Harsini
This study was about the effectiveness of explicit register-based instruction on the academic writing achievement of Iranian intermediate EFL learners by improving their knowledge of the concept of register, in general and informational register, in particular. 30 postgraduate Iranian intermediate TEFL students of Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, participated in this study. Participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group who received the treatment through the model text with highlighted informational registers’ features and register-based instruction, and the control group who received no treatment. A placement test was administered to ensure that all of the students were in the intermediate level of language proficiency. A research article was given to both groups and they were asked to write an article review, as a pretest. After receiving treatment, again another research article was given to both groups and they were invited to write an article review. Having collected enough and essential data, the quantitative and qualitative analyses of data were carried out. As the study was based on small scale register analysis, only the most significant linguistic features of academic register were selected. The data analysis indicated that the participants of none of the groups improved their academic writing scores significantly; however, a relatively small level of significance observed in the experimental group members’ performance. Due to a multiplicity of possible reasons such as the relatively short period of treatment and small sample size, the improvement was observed in the experimental group did not reach the statistically meaningful level.
