Effects of Prompts on EFL Students’ English Writing Performance Based on Their Writing Proficiency

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of writing prompts on EFL students’ English writing performance in accordance with their writing proficiency. To fulfill this purpose, first, 238 college students were divided into three levels depending upon their pre-writing test results (high, mid, and low). They were also asked to write one essay using two different prompts (bare and prose) each and take the pre- and post-writing tests. Finally, their writing products were rated and analyzed using both the holistic and the analytic scoring rubric. The results are as follows: first, it was found that there was a significant difference in the students’ writing scores of the pre- and post-writing tests, which implies that consecutive writing practice had a positive effect on the development of the students’ writing proficiency without any formal instruction on writing; second, the students got higher scores when using the prose prompt than the bare one, which suggests that the prose prompt sheds more light on the students’ writing performance; finally, they showed different writing performance depending upon their writing proficiency. Based upon these results, the following suggestions can be made: first, more opportunities to carry out writing tasks should be provided to EFL learners, especially to learners in the low level; and second, taking their English writing proficiency into account, a wider selection of prompts need to be provided to help develop their writing abilities.