DOES THE MEDIUM MAKE THE MAGIC? THE EFFECT OF IWRITER ON ADVANCED IRANIAN EFL LEARNER’S ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY WRITING SKILL

Nowadays education is more and more taking advantage of information technology. One of the most recent and attractive applications is iWriter. It is an interactive application which provides guidance for planning, developing, and checking different kinds of writing. Given the importance of writing, especially the academic ones for university students, this study tried to investigate the effectiveness of iWriter on advanced Iranian university student’s argumentative writing skill. To this end, 40 male and female EFL university students were randomly selected. They were given a topic to write about as the pretest. Having been randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control, the experimental group received the treatment which was working with the application for one term (12 sessions). At the end of the experiment, both groups were given a TOEFL test of writing. Then the paired samples t-test was conducted to compare the mean scores of the pre and posttests. The results showed that the experimental groups’ argumentative writing skill improved significantly in posttest indicating the positive effect of iWriter. The important thing to note is that the teachers recognize the importance of integrating technology with their instructions and considering its role as being essential for effective teaching. Steps should be taken towards providing more guidance in working with technological applications in classrooms. Teachers and students working with such applications feel committed to their learning, and teaching as a career. The teachers also identify that they feel empowered to take action when they see vulnerable students that need their attention.