Learners' Transfer of Writing Skills Between Languages

Abstract

One hundred, twenty-six secondary school EFL students took part in this study, which examines learners' transfer of essay organization skills between languages. Students were divided into three groups: (a) one receiving L1 essay writing instruction; (b) another receiving equivalent L2 (English) instruction; and (c) a comparison group receiving no such instruction. This article analyses students' pre- and post-test essay organization and grammatical proficiency scores. It concludes that many learners transfer writing skills between languages, and that their success in doing so is assisted by their grammatical proficiency in the target language.