Module teaching and integrating language skills lesson 1

EFL Proficiency Level
It is argued that proficient learners of English are said to produce good quality pieces of writing (Edelsky, 1982; Larios et al., 2001; Ito, 2004; Cumming, 2006). For example, Edelsky (1982) stated a number of factors including L2 student writers’ proficiency might influence students’ level of knowledge and writing in English. In a similar vein, (Larios et al., 2001) revealed that L2 higher proficiency participants devoted less time to concentrated formulation in the central stages of composing in English. In addition, Cumming (2006) proved that L2 proficiency is a significant factor in developing the overall quality of students’ written products. However, he added that proficiency did not obviously influence the processes of composing. Other researchers have addressed the extent to which students’ mother tongue proficiency affects the English writing of students. They claim that students who are proficient in L1 writing perform better in L2 writing. For example, Dweik & Abu-Al-Hommos (2007) who investigated the influence of Arabic proficiency on the English writing of bilingual-Jordanian students showed that there was a significant relationship between the two languages highlighting that proficient students in Arabic writing performed well in English writing. In a similar EFL context, Lopez (2005) found out that there is a positive correlation between L1 and L2 reading, and between L1 and L2 writing performance. This implies that finding difficulty in writing in a foreign language may be linked to the difficulty in writing in students’ first language. Moreover, Ito (2004) indicated that those students who write good quality pieces of writing in their L1 are better performers in their L2 writing. Not all studies are in this direction. In fact, some studies have concluded that students’ writing ability is not related to their proficiency of the language or content. For example, Bart & Evans (2003) reveal that students’ possession of content knowledge did not significantly correlate with their writing proficiency. Similarly, Raimes (2006) found out that there was little correspondence 61 demonstrated among proficiency, writing ability, and the students' composing strategies.