Effects Of Needs-based CALL Tasks On EFL Writing

EFL writing plays a very important role in foreign language learning and students'personal and academic development. Many researches in China (e.g.,叶云屏, 2002;张晓兰, 2004) report that learners'written products are full of problems regarding the form and meaning balance. The teacher-centered instruction and exam systems affect learners'engagement, the form-meaning awareness, and the form-meaning balance in their writing. The development of modern language learning theories as well as that of needs-based instructional design theory seems to have provided the theoretical bases and practical methods to solve the form-meaning imbalance problems. Nowadays the information and communication technologies (ICT) develop rapidly, which provides more space for the research and practice of the writing instruction. Pilot studies have been carried out to explore the efficacy of CALL instruction in EFL writing (e.g., Wang, 1996; Gu, 2002), but few empirical studies offer a detailed description of how and to what extent the needs-based CALL tasks specifically influence EFL participants'writing performance regarding both the form and meaning.A qualitative case study was conducted on a group of English majors in an EFL writing project at Soochow University in the spring 2005. The purpose of the study is to find out how and to what extent those needs-based CALL tasks influence participants'writing performances in terms of engagement, the form-meaning awareness and actual written products. It is also the researcher's interest to see what other factors facilitate or impede participants'writing development.The qualitative data obtained from pre-course background survey, participants'writings, informal interviews and the researcher's observation notes are analyzed in order to gain insights into the participants'writing development. The major findings in this study are as follows:Firstly, needs-based CALL tasks help establish confidence and engage participants in the writing performances. Participants'different attitude and motivation mark their different degrees of involvement in the writing performances.Secondly, different needs-based CALL tasks heighten participants'awareness of...