An investigation into ESL writing production in more and less restricted time conditions : a case study

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of time constraints on the writing output of Lebanese ESL students by comparing the quality of essays written under two time conditions: 30 minutes and 120 minutes. The participants in this study were 20 high school and/or university students who study English language in a center in North Lebanon. Each student wrote a 30 minute essay and a 120 minute essay on different topics. To detect any changes in the students writing performance, the 40 essays were scored according to six criteria adapted from TOEFL iBT. To uncover any further differences in the students discourse in both time conditions, twenty out of forty essays underwent content analysis. Finally, the students filled questionnaires about their educational background in order to detect whether their previous training in writing has any association with the results from the raters scores and the content analysis. According to the t-test results, there was a slight improvement in the students writing output in the 120 minute condition in all the criteria except in grammar. The content analysis showed slightly better performance in the 120 minute time condition in all the different writing areas except in cohesion. Finally, the background questionnaire revealed no reliable conclusions about the relationship between students previous writing training and the results of these timed iterations.