The Impact of Comprehensible Input (i+1) on Writing Proficiency: A Study of Secondary Level L2 Learners of English in Dir Lower, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

The study used a quasi-experimental design to test how Krashen's comprehensible input (i+1) impacted the English writing skills of secondary school students in rural Dir Lower Pakistan. The 42 participants received an eight-week i+1 intervention which used teaching materials designed for students who had already achieved their baseline WIDA writing assessment proficiency level. Participants were evaluated for all pre-test and post-test results using the WIDA writing rubric which assesses three domains: Linguistic Complexity, Language Forms, and Vocabulary Usage. The paired-samples t-test results together with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test results showed that participants demonstrated significant writing proficiency improvements which reached statistical significance with t(41) = −12.98 and p < .001 and d = 2.00. The largest domain-specific improvements occurred in Vocabulary Usage (d = 1.91) which was followed by Linguistic Complexity (d = 1.32) and Language Forms (d = 0.97). The study found that 81.0% of learners achieved a minimum increase of one WIDA proficiency level.