Record Detail

The curriculum for teaching undergraduate uni-versity students in Iran majoring in English generally includesparagraph writing in the second year and essay writing (4–5paragraphs) in the third year. The first-year course ‘Grammarand Writing (I & II)’ offered in two consecutive semesterscovers grammar only, despite the inclusion of writing in thetitle, and rarely goes beyond sentence-level writing in supportof the newly taught grammar. This one-year delay in focusingon writing per se has been a source of frustration for thosestudents who have to deal with the demanding writing tasks orlarge-scale written assignments such as extended essays andpapers later during their academic or professional life. Thecurrent study describes and evaluates a teaching interventionfor the potential development of a writing curriculum in first-year writing classes. A pre-test–post-test control group designwas employed to compare the effect of the writing instructionwithin the process genre approach with that of the traditionalgrammar and sentence-level writing on the fluency, accuracyand quality of students’ (n=68) paragraph and essay writingduring two consecutive semesters. Findings from the tests anda focus group discussion revealed that students in the treat-ment group outperformed their control group counterparts atboth paragraph and essay levels. The findings could inspiresimilar EFL programmes to design a writing curriculum andinstruction commensurate with the real needs of their students.