An Investigation of Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions towards the implementation of Text -Messaging in EFL Learners’ Academic Writing

Abstract

The present research investigates students’ perception and teachers’ point of view towards the effect of text-messaging on academic writing. The research hypothesized that due to the high positive attitudes towards text-messaging,is likely to be negatively affected who use more abbreviations and shortcuts in their electronic communication will produce strong informal writing but weaker academic writing. To validate these hypotheses, a descriptive method was opted to obtain data; two questionnaires were designed for both Master 2 students of English (63) out of 120 representatives, and teachers with different years of experiences at Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia University -Jijel. The results of this investigation confirmed the hypotheses. They revealed that most of the students and teachers view that texting has a negative impact and could be a serious threat on the academic written production. However, the results indicate that other factors, including the lack of respect for the traditional rules of writing, competence mistakes, lack of reading, lack of practice and laziness, may all weaker students’ academic writing . On the basis of the results obtained, some pedagogical recommendations have been proposed for both students and teachers to overcome any other factor that may hamper their academic research papers, and at the same time to appreciate the value ofwriting