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Makale Özeti:
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In studies of writing, linguistic proficiency
has been assumed to play an important factor
contributing to writing proficiency (Raimes, 1987;
Bereiter&Scardamalia, 1987; Hayes 1996).
Additional factors such as “cognitive” processes (i.e.
planning and reviewing) (Ellis, 2005), memory
(McCutchen, 1996, Alamargot&Chanquoi, 2001),
and the matter of the quality of writing and lexical
fluency (Van Gelderen&Oostdam; 2002, 2004) and
error correction (Ferris & Roberts, 2001;
Ferris;1999, 2002, 2004) have been among the focus
areas. This study examines whether instruction in a
university preparatory EFL program increases the
quality of writing. A typical criticism from university
academic writing classes often argues that short
preparatory programs do not produce able, coherent,
and proficient writers as preparatory reading and
writing programs face the dual challenge of
integrated skills instruction as well as covering many
of the conventions of academic writing. In an effort
to evaluate the effects of teaching academic writing
within an EFL preparatory program, this research
aims to compare the quality of writing within two
groups of students, low level EFL students (preintermediate
and intermediate levels) after a twothree
semester program against students whose initial
fluency was significantly higher at the time of
university entry (direct-entry students with an IELTS
6.5 equivalency or higher). To this aim, four factors
which are readability, lexical density, coherence and
grammar complexity in 50 essays have been
examined quantitatively. In this presentation, we aim
to highlight implications of the findings for academic
writing instruction at EFL university settings and for
the broader context academic programs in EFL
context. Our findings indicate that EFL students
graduating from the ELC score well below their
direct-entry peers in a number of categories.
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