THE IMPACT OF FORMULAIC EXPRESSIONS ON THE IRANIAN EFL STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL WITH DIFFERENT PROFICIENCY LEVELS

A basic element of an EFL writing class can be autonomous and independent language learning, and EFL instructors have always been grappling with students’ writing progress and improvement. Tracking down applicable techniques and efficient strategies for motivating students towards subconscious and self-language learning has motivated teachers to carefully verify students’ behavior, skills, aptitudes, and the conditions of the class. The researchers wished to find out whether the use of formulaic expressions could help improve the writing score of those students preparing themselves for the IELTS exam. To this end, sixteen students in an IELTS-preparation class took part in this research. In order to find out whether the teaching of formulaic expressions could help the learners, they were asked to write a composition on a given topic. The compositions were then collected and then they were taught fifteen frozen phrases and asked to re-write the same composition. The compositions were then corrected and a t-test was run to see whether there was a significant change in the performance of the participants. The results suggest a significant improvement in the performance of the participants after the introduction of formulaic expressions. Therefore, we can claim that the teaching of some formulaic expressions could help the learners improve the quality of their writing.