An Investigation of the Effect of Journal Writing on EFL Learners Oral Production

ABSTRACT: Learning to speak foreign language requires more than knowing its grammatical and semantic rules. Speaking a language is especially difficult for foreign language learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interaction. This paper examines these aspects, so that teachers can more effectively help adult learners developing their abilities to communicate in target language. The aim of the present study was encouraging students to write about whatever they liked and what they wished to write about special subjects. The participants of this study were 30 female students in intermediate level who were selected by proficiency test from two classes of Abrar language institute in Gorgan, Iran. They had registered in a speaking- writing course. The students considered themselves as poor writers and found writing difficult. These students were not able to communicate ideas while they were familiar with the rules of paragraph writing and language form. All subjects were pre-tested for homogeneity, and then the experimental group was treated with journal writing in 8sessions. Following the treatment, a post-test was administered to the groups. Descriptive statistics and T- test indicated that there was a significant difference between two groups. Moreover, the results displayed that dialogue journal writing could encourage students to communicate more effectively with their teacher and classmates, also participants improved in writing as far as communication to each other.