The Effect of Integrated and Independent Tasks on English Foreign Language learners' writing ability

This study aimed at investigating the difference of integrated writing task of the TOFEL iBT candidates in comparison with independent writing task on Iranian EFL learners writing performance. The initial population for the study was 50 junior EFL students. To get more homogeneity, participants were selected among those who were studying in the third year of university in EFL major. They were male and female students. They were all from Azad university of Tehran-, central branch with the age range of 20-22. Thirty three students were recognized as being at the intermediate level of proficiency. Three students quitted collaborating with the researcher. So, the number of participants decreased and out of them 30 was randomly assigned to two groups. The researcher grouped the learners into two fifteen groups. The first group who has received the integrated type of writing as the method of writing practice during the course of advanced writing at the university control group and the second group who has been taught the independent type of writing as the method of learning how to write.  In the first group, the learners were given the writing that accompanied with graphic interpretation and description whereas the second group was given only a topic for essay writing. The results revealed that the integrated-task group outperformed the independent-task group in writing scores.