Second Language Learners’ Performance and Strategies When Writing Direct and Translated Essays

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL students' performance and strategies when writing direct and translated essays. The study also aimed at exploring students' strategies when writing in L2 (English) and L1 (Arabic). The study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative procedures for data collection and analysis. Adapted strategy questionnaires, writing essay prompts and follow-up questions were utilized for data gathering. Thirty six university students participated in writing three different essays (direct L2 essay, L1essay, and translated essay). Furthermore, the participants responded to strategy questionnaires and answered follow-up questions. The results revealed statistically significant differences between direct and translated writing in favor of the first one. No significant differences between direct and translated writing in the use of strategies were found. The study's findings may have pedagogical implications for the fields of writing instruction, writing assessment and teacher training. Based on the results, the study ended with some recommendations to assist and direct future research.

Lexical Error as Common Interference in Students' Translations Using L2

“…Another interesting result is that students always or usually try to make an effort to think how best to express their ideas in English that has mean percentage of 4. In line with the result, Ismail and Alsheikh (2012) also found out in their study that it is the most frequent strategy used by the students (69%) in the translated essay. However, the study revealed that the respondents are generally interfered in their translations which reach about 67%, although they have applied the same technique.…”