An Investigation of the Interdependence between Writing in Persian as L1 and English as L2 on Female Intermediate Students: Language Problem or Writing Problem
English is the leading foreign language enjoying a prestigious position in many countries, including Iran. Many Iranian learners start learning English from first grade of junior high school; some other people send their children to English institutes as early as primary school or even pre school, yet the problem is that most of them have problems in obtaining the satisfactory level of proficiency either in receptive skills (Listening and Reading) or productive skills (Speaking and Writing) or in both. Among the four skills, writing is of great importance. Hence, the current study examined the interdependence between writing in Persian (L1) and English (L2) For this purpose, 30 Iranian EFL learners majoring in English Translation at Islamic Azad University of Qaemshahr were selected. First of all, a TOEFL test was used to homogenize the learners. Then, the participants were asked to write English and Persian compositions on the same topic in narrative, descriptive and expository genres in two separate sessions, first L2 compositions then L1 composition after a two week delay. These writings were scored according to the ESL Composition Profile (Jacobs et al. 1981) by two scorers for each language. Using Pearson product moment correlation, the correlation between L2 proficiency and L1 writing to L2 writing was examined. The outcomes displayed large correlations between L2 proficiency and L2 writing but no correlation between L1 writing and L2 writing. The findings entail some pedagogical implications for improving EFL learners' L2 writing ability through getting more knowledge in English rather than focusing on Persian writing.