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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1465765

The Influence of Mobile-Assisted Critical Writing Instructions on EFL Learners' Writing Skill in Language Institutes

Provisionally accepted
Mahdi Zalani Mahdi Zalani *Hiwa Weisi Hiwa Weisi Nouroddin Yousofi Nouroddin Yousofi
  • Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study examined the influence of mobile-assisted critical writing instructions on EFL learners' writing skill in language institutes. Ninety EFL learners who were studying English at three branches of a language institute in Iran took part in this research. Two equal groups as control and experimental were formed. As the pretest, a writing task was assigned to the groups which required them to write an argumentative report. The reports were the participants' personal analyses of the contents they had viewed on TV about an important political issue. After the pretest, the control group received instructions for critical writing in class without using Instagram. The treatment lasted for 12 weeks. During the treatment, the control group were asked to watch some TV channels devoted to news. The experimental group received instructions for critical writing in class and via Instagram. The treatment lasted for 12 weeks. The experimental group, who were all Instagram users, were asked to view some Instagram accounts belonging to famous news agencies. Additionally, an Instagram account was created by the teacher and they were asked to follow it for receiving instructions there. When the treatments ended, the posttest was administered. The control group were required to watch the TV channels and the experimental group were required to view the Instagram accounts to write an argumentative report about an important political issue. The reports were the participants' personal analyses of the contents they had viewed. Despite having nearly the same mean scores on the pretest, the two groups' mean scores on the posttest were different and the experimental group scored higher than the control group. Finally, fifteen members of the experimental group were interviewed. The focus of the interview was on the participants' suggestions and criticisms of the study. Overall, the experimental group had positive perceptions of the treatment. This study may have implications for teacher trainers, supervisors, teachers, and textbook writers.

    Keywords: mobile-assisted language learning, Writing skill, Critical writing, Critical Thinking, Language Institutes, english

    Received: 22 Jul 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zalani, Weisi and Yousofi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mahdi Zalani, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.