Formative evaluation of a process-genre writing curriculum at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages

Program evaluation has an important role in education and curriculum development sinceit helps to determine the weak and strong points of a program to make it more effective. AnadoluUniversity School of Foreign Languages (AUSFL) is one of the institutions that has undergone acurriculum renewal process. One of the courses that has undergone a big change to meet thestudents? needs more was the writing course and this study focused on evaluating the writingcurriculum in 2005-2006 Fall term at AUSFL.This study aimed to find out the writing instructors? views about the writing curriculum. Thesecondary aim of this study was to find out what the views of teachers teaching at different levelswere. For these purposes, 48 teachers teaching at the AUSFL were taken as the subjects of thisstudy. A questionnaire; considering the literature, previous studies, and views of the writingteachers working at AUSFL, was developed and used to find out the teachers? views about thewriting curriculum. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the results of the questionnaire. Thereliability of the questionnaire was calculated with the Reliability Analysis and the Cronbachalpha was found 0, 8715, which means the reliability of the questionnaire was 87%. To find outwhat the views of the teachers teaching at different levels were, cross tabulation of each item inthe questionnaire was found. The frequencies and percentages of each item were calculateddescriptively. Afterwards, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 40% of the teachers toget their further thoughts about the writing curriculum.The analysis of the data revealed that although the teachers, generally, had positive viewsabout the writing curriculum, they also experienced some problems with the packs, the criterionused to grade the different genres taught, and the writing competition held during the term.Revising the packs and making necessary changes to make the course more effective in thesummer workshops were among the suggestions indicated by the participants.