The Impact of Journal Writing on Cycle Two EFL Students Writing Achievement

Although writing proficiency is a must nowadays, it seems to be challenging for many EFL students. Being limited to timing and grade, students in Beirut Lebanon schools demotivated and suffer from the writing periods and process. Cycle two students avoid writing in English as they lack the basic writing skills that help them meet the growing demands of this skill. As a potential solution, this study investigated whether or not EFL learners could overcome their writing difficulties by engaging them in journal writing technique. Sixty-two students from grades 4, 5 and 6 at a private school in Beirut Lebanon were enrolled in this study. The participants were motivated to write journals three times a week for 12 weeks. The teacher used to collect students journals every Friday and turn them back on Mondays with her encouraging comments written on every student`s journal. Most of the common mistakes were explained and discussed by the teacher before distributing students copybooks. Moreover, students had to fill in an attitude questionnaire of five questions derived from literature to evaluate their improvement and attitude toward EFL journal writing after conducting the journal writing technique. For additional data, the teacher and the researcher observation notes served in exploring more details about students reactions and attitudes toward their journal writing experience. The findings indicated significant improvement in students writing posttest scores compared to their pretest scores and impressive students attitude toward EFL writing. Thus, results showed that journal writing can be taken into educators consideration as an extensive technique to enhance learners writing skill and foster their EFL writing attitude.