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Volume 10 Number 1, Spring 2013, Pages 1-131   


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Exploring EFL Writers' Attitudes towards Reading-to-Write and Writing-Only Test Tasks: A Qualitative Approach

    Nasrin Khaki, Gholamreza Hessamy, Fatemeh Hemmati and Hassan Iravani


Attitude is an important issue in second/foreign language learning which may act as a facilitator or deterrent. This study investigated the Iranian writers' attitudes towards reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. Applying a qualitative research design, 20 EFL writers were selected based on purposive sampling and were assigned the two task types. After each task, they were interviewed about their attitudes towards the tasks. The interviews were carefully transcribed and the transcriptions were judiciously read and coded. Their attitudes were explored regarding the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of attitude. The results showed that there were some differences in their attitudes towards these two tasks. For the reading-to-write task, cognitive component included their beliefs towards text, reader, and grammatical knowledge, whereas for writing-only task, it was comprised of task, reader, and content. In both tasks, there were some negative and positive affective components. The writers' behaviors related to the cognitive and affective components changed according to the type of task. As positive attitude leads to more investment on the task, it is recommended that teachers try to create a favorable atmosphere to change the learners' attitude to a positive one to help them deal with these tasks.

Keywords: attitude, reading-to-write task, writing-only task, EFL writers