THE EFFECT OF USING SCREENPLAY TECHNIQUE ON IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ PARAGRAPH WRITING ABILITY

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of using screenplay technique as an approach in teaching paragraph writing ability. The question this study tried to answer was whether using screenplay technique might improve the paragraph writing ability of the Iranian EFL students of English at intermediate level in English language institutes. To answer the question, 30 intermediate level students participated in the study. They were randomly selected from among a population of 60 via an OPT test score of at least one standard deviation below the mean. They were then divided into two groups of 15 and were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. A pretest of paragraph writing was administered to both groups, and then they were taught paragraph writing instruction for 5 successive sessions but with different methodologies: the experimental group received a treatment of screenplay technique while the control group received the traditional instruction of paragraph writing. A posttest of paragraph writing was then administered to both groups. The obtained data of the study were analyzed using an independent sample t-test to indicate the posttests mean difference of both groups and the closeness of the scores from pretest to posttest scores of both groups were determined by calculating the Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The results indicated that the Iranian EFL learners in the experimental group scored higher in paragraph writing after being treated with screenplay technique in 5 successive sessions.