November 9, 2024
Nasim Ghanbari

Nasim Ghanbari

Academic Rank: Assistant professor
Address:
Degree: Ph.D in English Language Teaching
Phone: 077 3122 2321
Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

Research

Title The Effect of Van Dijk Discourse Strategies on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Proficiency
Type Article
Keywords
critical discourse analysis, writing skill, ideology, micro-discursive strategies, macro-discursive strategies
Journal Theory and Practice in Language Studies
DOI
Researchers Fatemeh Rasouli Kashkouli (First researcher) , Nasim Ghanbari (Second researcher) , Abbas Abbasi (Third researcher)

Abstract

This study tried to improve the writing proficiency of Iranian EFL students utilizing an innovative model through implementing and operationalizing the principles of critical discourse analysis which was introduced by Van Dijk’s (2000) well-known socio-cognitive model. To this end, 57 intermediate language learners studying English in language institutes for several years were selected as the participants of the study using a version of TOEFL test as the selected proficiency test. The included participants were randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control—with 28 students in experimental group (16 females and 12 males) and 29 students in control group (17 females and 12 males). Both groups went through a three-stage model (pre-writing, during-writing and post-writing). The teaching procedure on writing had some differences between the instruction provided for the experimental group and the instruction presented to the control group in which the experimental group received some instruction of some suitable discursive strategies, namely, comparison, example (illustration), explanation, repetition, reasonableness and context description. After instruction, two groups were asked to write on a topic and their compositions were scored using holistic scoring procedure in order to guarantee the high reliability. The results of the study showed the significant differences between the performances of the experimental and control groups which indicated to the efficiency of the CDA-oriented approach to teach writing skill. However, the result of the study showed non-significant differences between the performances of the two genders as well as the performances of females and males in each group.