The effect of controlled, guided, and free writing on the cohesiveness of Iranian EFL learners' argumentative writing

This study aimed at investigating the effect of controlled, quided, and free writing on the cohesiveness of Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing. The participants were 60 Iranian senior high school students . The participants were randomly assigned to three experimental groups, and each group was assigned to one of the treatment conditions. The first group practiced controlled writing, the second group practiced guided writing, and the third group practiced free writing for ten sessions. The data were collected via the participants’ pre and posttest writings, and analysed using three paired-samples t-tests and a One-way ANOVA procedure. The findings showed that although the students in all three groups showed significant improvements from pretest to posttest, the controlled writing group outperformed the other two groups. These findings can have implications for EFL learners as well as teachers.

controlledwriting , guidedwriting , free writing, argumentative writing