The Impact of Negotiated Syllabus on the EFL Learners’ Writing Ability and Self-Esteem

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of negotiated syllabus ondeveloping EFL learners’ writing ability and self-esteem. To do so, first Nelsonproficiency test was administered to 90 participants to select intermediate homogenouslearners. The scores were analyzed and the mean was obtained. Then one standarddeviation above and below the mean was considered as a technique to homogenize theparticipants. Therefore, 61 learners were selected as homogeneous intermediateparticipants for this study. The learners were divided into experimental group (n = 30) andcontrol group (n = 31). A writing test and self-esteem questionnaire (SEI) as pre-tests weregiven to both groups in order to determine their writing ability and level of self-esteembefore starting the treatment course. The control group received conventional writinginstruction but the experimental group experienced writing instruction based on negotiatedsyllabus. At the end of the course, the learners in both groups took a writing test and self –esteem questionnaire as post-test to find out which group had performed significantlybetter than the other. Independent samples t-test found a statistically significant differencein writing scores for experimental and control groups on the post-test favoring theexperimental. Besides, t-test found a statistically significant difference in self-esteemscores between the two experimental and control groups on the post-test in favor of theexperimental. Thus, the findings of present study indicated that writing ability and selfesteemwere more significantly affected in light of the treatment via negotiated syllabus.