The Effects of Interactive Writing Strategy on Lexical Complexity in EFL Students’ Written Performance

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the impact of using interactive writing strategy on EFL students' written outputs. This investigation involved 100 EFL students, comprising an experimental group (N = 50), which practiced writing skills through interactive writing sessions, and a control group (N = 50), which received traditional writing instruction. The research methodology included the administration of a pretest/post-test, and the analysis of essays was conducted using the L2 Lexical Complexity Analyzer to calculate lexical complexity scores. The study's findings revealed a significant progress in EFL learners' overall writing performance after using interactive writing strategies (p =.000).The  results also revealed statistically significant differences in lexical density and lexical sophistication scores for the experimental group, indicating that students wrote denser and more sophisticated essays after participating in the interactive writing sessions. However, no differences were detected for lexical variation. The findings of this study highlighted the importance of using interactive writing in EFL writing classrooms, with implications for teachers.