| dc.description.abstract | Poor performance in academic writing skills,
lack of innovative strategies and technology for language
teaching and learning (Embogama, 2010, Maharoof, 2014,
Ratwawatte, 2012) are some of the major areas which
should be focused when teaching English as a Second
Language (ESL) learners. Therefore, the main focus of the
current study was to find out the effectiveness of developing
academic writing skills among ESL learners in a Computer
Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environment. For
the study setting, the researcher chose one of the state
universities in Sri Lanka where the language lecturers
do not use CALL to maximize the language learning
opportunities for undergraduates off campus. To achieve
the purpose of the study, an experimental study was
designed, and it was conducted for eleven weeks which
had randomly selected 54 second year undergraduates in
the sample. Then the participants were randomly assigned
for experimental and control groups. Those who were in
the experimental group worked in CALL while the control
group worked in class. The data were analyzed using
mix method approach. The findings indicate that both
learning modes have advantages for improving academic
writing skills. Thus the introduction of blended learning is
recommended while successfully addressing issues in both
learning modes. It is believed that the knowledge obtained
in this study can make contributions to the field of CALL
and applied linguistics. | en_US |
