The effect of reading-to-write approach on EFL undergraduate essay writing

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the effect of pre-writing reading on the undergraduate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ performance in academic writing. Specifically, the main aim of the study is to examine whether the employment of ‘reading-to-write approach’ improves the university learners’ essay writing at home situation. It also tries to check if the suggested approach makes any difference in the target group’s writing. Control group and experimental group research design was used to examine the difference between the two groups and to determine if the suggested approach could make any significance statistically. The two groups sat for pretest and posttest in cause and effect essay writing. To compare the performance of the two groups in the posttest, an Independent Sample T-test was used. The results of the posttest indicate that there is a noteworthy improvement of the experimental group’s essay writing. In addition, the study used grading rubric as criteria to assess the population’s performance in the major components of academic essay writing. The study findings show that the learners’ literacy is a major concern for the students as evident in the lack of reasonable ideas in their writing. Additionally, the paper is a genuine call to foster reading habits that would eventually develop academic writing.