The Effect of Form Focused Writing Conferences on the Use of Word Associations in EFL Essay Writing

The purpose of this research was to examine if form focused teacher-student writing conferences could increase learners use of word associations in their writing and also their writing achievement. The participantsof the study were upper intermediate students in a language institute in Rasht. An experimental quantitativestudy design involving two experimental and a control group was used. Data were collected in both classrooms, counting the number of word associations in participants pre-and post-Writing, transcription of audio-taped teacher-student writing conference, as well as students’ written performance scores from students’ writingsample. The Results revealed that form-focused writing conference had a significant effect on students frequency of word associations in their writing in two experimental groups, but there was not any significant difference between sub-sets of experimental group (product- and process-oriented conferences). The conference did not have any significant effect on participants writing achievement, as well.

Keywords:

Form focused writing conferences , product- and process-oriented writing conference , Words associations , Vocabulary knowledge , lexical richness