Students’ Awareness about Language Formality/Informality Inside and Outside the Classroom.

Abstract

The present paper aims at investigating the importance of raising students’ awareness about writing style variation inside and outside the classroom to improve learners’ academic writing. One of the difficulties facing students is the use of the inappropriate style inside the classroom. This issue is the result of students’ lack of awareness and shortage of knowledge about the convenient language style to use in the academic environment. On the contrary, awareness about the appropriate style could enhance students’ skills and improve their writing in relation to the situation in function. Thus, it is hypothesized that there could be a correlation between style variation awareness and enhancing students’ academic writing. To test this hypothesis, qualitative comparative study is conducted on third year students. Two data gathering tools are used. First, students’ test is conducted to collect samples of the students’ classroom writings from one group out of six (36 participants out of 230), and 40 corpuses of their Facebook online communication. Both corpuses are contrasted to identify the extent of formality and informality in their inside and outside the classroom written English. Second, a questionnaire, as a follow-up tool, is needed for further understanding. The analysis of the gathered data taken from three groups out of six (100 participants out of 230), reveal that students lack of awareness about formal and informal registers impacts the use of the appropriate language style in academic setting. The results of this study confirm that a linear relationship exists between style variation awareness and the improvement of students’ academic writing. Therefore, it is recommended to raise students’ awareness about writing styles for the crucial role it plays in improving students’ written English.