A Study of the Effects of Dialogue Journal Writing and Guided Writing on Taiwanese High School Students' Writing Proficiency and Writing Apprehension

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dialogue journal writing and guided writing on the writing proficiency and writing apprehension of EFL senior high school students in Taiwan. The study lasted for 16 weeks and included two classes of first-year senior high school students in National Kangshan Senior High School in Kaohsiung County. One class, designated as the dialogue journal group, was engaged in a dialogue journal writing activity; the other class, designated as the guided writing group, received explicit instruction on organization and wrote compositions by imitating the organization of the model texts. All the participants took a writing pre-test and a post-test. Besides, they responded to a background information questionnaire and a pre-Second Language Writing Apprehension Tests at the beginning of the study, and completed a post-Second Language Writing Apprehension Test and an evaluation questionnaire at the end of the study. The results showed that both groups improved significantly in their writing proficiency. No significant difference was found in the improvement of the participants’ writing performance between the two groups, but the guided writing group’s progress was bigger than that of the dialogue journal group. Both groups’ writing apprehension also decreased at the end of the study. However, the dialogue journal writing was found significantly more effective in reducing students’ writing apprehension. Since both dialogue journal writing and guided writing were able to help improve students’ writing proficiency and reduce their writing apprehension, it was recommended that EFL writing teachers implement these two writing practices based on students’ needs and the course objectives in their English courses.