Gramer odaklı yazılı anlatım dersinin Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa Üniversitesi'ndeki öğrencilerin yazılı anlatım yetenekleri üzerindeki etkileri

ABSTRACT Title: The effects of grammar-focused writing instruction on the writing abilities of students at the University of Gaziosmanpaşa in Tokat Author: Thesis Chairperson: Committee Members: Mustafa Cigdem Dr. Bena Gul Peker Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program Dr. Theodore S. Rodgers Dr. Tej Shresta Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program Improving student writing abilities has been one of the main concerns of language teachers and researchers. There have been numerous research studies to determine the effects of teaching writing in various ways. Some of these studies are related to the effectiveness of teaching grammar in the writing class. The results of these studies, however, have yielded controversial results (Holden, 1994; El- Banna, 1994). This study aimed at determining the effects of grammar-focused writing instruction on the writing abilities of EFL students focusing on the Turkish context. There were two groups in this study: an experimental group which was taught how to write with a grammar-focused writing class and an experimental group which was taught with the process approach. All the subjects were first year students attending the University of Gaziosmanpaşa.The students were required to write a composition as a pre-test before the treatment started. The treatment took place over a period of four weeks. Every week students attended one session which lasted forty five minutes. In the experimental group each writing class started with a grammar explanation which lasted about fifteen minutes. The grammar explanation focused on the grammatical items, the simple past and past continuous tense verbs. The explanation was followed by reading a passage based on the structures focused on in the grammar explanation which also lasted fifteen minutes. The subjects were required to read the reading passage so that they could see English sentences in context. The last fifteen minutes of each class was devoted to the writing of first drafts. At the end of each session, the researcher collected the compositions and gave written feedback on the grammatical accuracy of the compositions. These were given to the class teacher to be returned to the subjects the following morning. The students wrote a final draft at home according to the feedback given by the researcher on the grammatical accuracy of the compositions. The control group, on the other hand, started with a pre-writing activity during which students produced words and ideas about the topic of the writing they were going to work on. A reading passage related to the writing topic was read by the students. Then, the subjects wrote their first drafts. Having written the first drafts, the subjects exchanged drafts and gave oral feedback to their peers which was mainly on the content of the draft. The subjects wrote their second drafts based on the feedback they received from their peers. The researcher collected the compositions at the end of the session andgave written feedback based on the content and gave them to the class teachers. The compositions were returned to the subjects by the class teacher the following morning. The last drafts were produced according to this content feedback from the researcher. At the end of the four- week treatment, as a post test, the subjects were required to write on the same topic given for the pre-test compositions. The same topic was used in order to compare more accurately the differences between the pre-test and post-test compositions. These compositions constituted the data to be analyzed to find out the effects of the treatment on student writing abilities. The pre-test and post-test compositions were evaluated both holistically and analytically by two non-native English lecturers working at the same University. The results of the holistic and analytic scoring indicated that the subjects in both groups experienced an improvement in their writing abilities. It was observed that there was an increase in the mean scores between the pre-test and post-test compositions. It was also found that the control group subjects who were instructed with the process approach improved more than the grammar focused writing group subjects on the components of writing such as, grammar, content, and organization along with the overall writing proficiency. This indicated that students' writing ability, including grammatical accuracy, can be improved without specific focus on grammar structures. One outcome of this study suggested that teaching of writing as a separate course would improve students' writing abilities no matter which technique - grammar-focused or the process approach - is used in the writing class. This improvement can be seen as a result of students' receiving instruction on how to write and practice in writing severalcompositions both in class and at home. Attention to writing and practice in writing had a positive effect on student writing abilities.