The Effect of Van Dijk Discourse Strategies on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Proficiency

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.