Promoting Literacy and Writing Proficiency through a Reading-Based Method

Abstract:

The present study examines the writing proficiency of  Algerian  EFL  undergraduate learners (Applied  Language  Studies)  at the  university of  Constantine  1,  Algeria.  As a very important language skill,  the ability to write stretches of discourse that  are  communicatively  successful is  one  of  the  major  concerns of  language  teachers.  The   main  aim  of  the  study  is  to  see  whether  there  is  a  positive  relationship  between  the  use  of  connective  expressions  in  the  argumentative  type  of  text  and  the  students’  overall  writing  quality,  reflected  by  the  teacher’s  assigned  marks  to  students’  essays.   Two  groups of  students were tested before  teaching  intervention  to  have  a  general  idea  about  their  level (pre-test) in  writing  and  the  use  of connectives.  The two groups received  the  same  teaching  intervention  during  a  period  of  9  weeks(quasi-experimental  design),  then  they  have  been  given  a post-test.  The  results  of  the  pretest  and  the  posttest  have  been  analyzed  using   the  correlation  coefficient  test.  The  results  have shown  that there is  an improvement in the  students’  proficiency  in  writing  after  the  teaching  intervention.  The  analysis  of  the students’  essays  with  regard  to  the  use  of  connective  expressions  and  the  students’  overall  mark  has  shown  that  there  is  a  positive  relationship between the students’  frequent use of connective expressions and their marks (quality of texts The hypothesis upon which the research was based  on was,  hence,  confirmed.