Investigating the Effectiveness of the Text Structure and Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction for Improving Pakistani University Students’ ESL Writing Skills

Abstract

The study aims at investigating the effectiveness of the Text Structure and Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction for improving Pakistani University Students’ ESL writing skills. A total of 135 students were divided into three different conditions Text Structure Instructions (TSI), Self-Regulated Strategy Instructions (SRSI), and The Control group equally. TSI includes the descriptive Text structures specifically with explanatory lectures on other text structures. SRSI followed the SRSD model that includes self-regulatory writing strategies. The Control group used the conventional teaching writing techniques. After the intervention of six weeks, results were compared using t-test. TSI and SRSI as compared with traditional writing techniques outperformed and showed better results. Unlike the traditional group of this study, TSI and SRSI put a significant impact on the writing outcomes of the students. TSI impacted the organization in the essay writing of the learners and SRSI improved the quality of essay writing of the students. Furthermore, the linguistic and textual analyses show that the learners taught through TSI and SRSI methods have shown improved syntactic complexity, better organization of essay writing, and lexical variations.

Keywords: Self-regulation, Text Structure, Writing Instruction, Writing Outcomes.