Developing the Writing Skill through Paraphrasing and Summarizing. A Case Study of 2nd Year EFL Students at Mila University Center.

Abstract

The present work aims at improving our understanding of paraphrasing and summarizing techniques from both the learner and teacher perspective. By showing that using summarizing and paraphrasing as tasks and ctivities, students can benefit from models of good writing as well as improve their writing skills. It also aims at examining the reasons for learners’ poor writing from their teachers’ perspective. To reach these aims and gather more insights, we have based our research on two research instruments: second year EFL students’ writing test and a questionnaire addressed to twelve written expression teachers at Abdalhafid Boussouf University Center. The findings of this study confirmed the hypothesis set out that students’ writing skills can be improved using paraphrasing and summarizing exercises. Results have also shown that students’ low erformance was due to their lack of motivation, comprehension, limited vocabulary range, use of cohesion techniques and awareness of the summary and paraphrasing steps