Effects of Writing Strategy Instruction on Learners' Perception & Performance

1. Exploring the effects of writing strategy instruction on the learners’ perceptions and performance Wang Yuwen Beijing Institute of Technology

2. Overview 1. Introduction • Research Design • Results • Conclusion

3. Introduction • “Writing in a second or a foreign language is regarded difficult for the majority of English learners as a second or foreign language at all levels” (Lee, 2005:336)

4. Williams (2005:77) claims that “some L2 writers have trouble generating and developing ideas for writing” and that “some of these strategies in pre-writing are more appropriate than others for L2 writers”.

5. Williams (2005: 31) claims “L2 writers spend less time planning, reviewing and revising their work than native speakers do, evidently to their detriment”.

6. Few writing studies conducted have focused on writing strategy instruction. Polio (2003) made an investigation of published writing research in the 1990s and found only four out of 35 were concerned with writing instruction. These four writing instruction studies employed experimental studies rather than multiple perspectives.

7. Most of the published writing research in the 1990s was conducted by one single perspective. Only three out of 35 combined qualitative with causal comparison approach. The other studies adopted either in an experimental approach or a correlational approach or a causal-comparative approach.

8. Fewer researches have been conducted on the links of learners’ knowledge of writing strategies, their perceived or actual use of writing strategies and their writing performance.

9. Building on previous studies of L2 writing and the effects of strategy training on L2 learners’ performance and drawing on strategy training models (Oxford et al, 1990; Macaro 2001), this study investigates the effects of writing strategy instruction on 88 Chinese EFL students’ perceptions, their application and their performance in argumentative writing.

10. The goal of this study is to help EFL Chinese learners at the graduate level enhance their awareness of writing strategies and improve their writing performance of argumentative essays by explicitly instructing meta-cognitive strategies.

11. Cohen (1998:69) suggests, “no single strategy will be appropriate for all learners or for all tasks, and individual learners can and should apply the various strategies in different ways”. • Polio (2003:50) also suggests that “the same strategies may not work for two different individuals”.

12. Macaro (2001:187) suggests, “learners may need to be shown explicitly and repeatedly the strategies which they can try in order to achieve better learning”.

13. Seven pre-writing strategies : Brainstorming, idea-mapping, outlining, organization, textual, syntactic and lexical planning. • Five revising strategies: peer review, revise the content, revise the organization, revise the sentences, revise sentences and words grammatically.

14. 2.Research Design • 1).Subjects: • 88 subjects, Group A, 30; Group B 29, Group C 29. • 2). Research questions • (1). When learners respond to a questionnaire about their perception and use of writing strategies, is there a significant difference before and after a writing strategy instruction course?

15. If so, which strategies is it most useful to introduce at this level? • (2). Is there an improvement in learners’ writing performance after a writing strategy course? • (3). Is there a correlation between improved perception, application and performance? If so, to what degree and in what area?

16. 3) A quasi-experimental study • The experimental groups: A & B • The control group: C Strategy instruction: about 40 minutes a week, one per week. A: seven planning strategies; B: three planning strategies and five revising strategies.

17. 4) Instruments • (1) Pre-questionnaire • Personal information; • knowledge about pre-writing and revising strategies; • Applications of writing strategies; • Beliefs about writing strategies; • Difficulties in writing;

18. (2) Post-questionnaire: the same except for two items in the personal information. • (3) Pre-test: 40 minutes, “On the internet” • (4) Post-test: 40 minutes, “On the internet”

19. Data analyses (1) . Cronbach alpha, a reliability analysis scale used to test reliability coefficients. George and Mallery (2006): a>.9 – excellent; a>.8 – good; a>.7 – acceptable; a>.6 – questionable; a>.5 – poor; a>. – unacceptable

20. The overall Cronbach alpha reliability • for the 45-item questionnaire given • as a pre-measure was .85 and .86 on the post-measure.

21. knowledge about writing strategies( 12 items, .83 pre, .85 post) • Employment of writing strategies (23 items, .82 pre and .75 post ) • Beliefs about writing strategies (Six items, .86 pre, .91 post ) • Difficulties in writing (four items, .58 pre and .48 post)

22. Cronbach alpha to check the rating reliability of the four raters. • Alpha value in the pre-test of four raters: • Total: .95; Content: .92; Organ. .87; • Voc. .89; Language use. 91; Meca. .69 • Alpha value in the post-test of four raters: • Total: .96; Content: .97; Organ. .92; • Voc. .88; Language use. 89; Meca. .69

23. (2)The Spearman rank correlation coefficient has been employed in this research to check the correlation between the knowledge of the writing strategy and the application of the writing strategy, between the application of the writing strategy and the writing performance in the post-test.

24. (3) The Kruskal-Wallis H Test was employed in this research to check the significant differences among three groups in knowing about the writing strategy, and applying the writing strategy before as well as after the treatment.

25. (4) ANOVAwas employed in this study to identify significant differences among three groups in the pre-test and the post-test and identify pair-wise differences with regard to the data of the questionnaires after the Kruskal Wallis Test was run.

26. (5)Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using SPSS • Data obtained from the pre-test and post-test writing tasks were used to determine students’ improvement in writing proficiency after the treatment. Post-test means were compared, adjusting for initial differences on the pre-test means.

27. 3. Results 1) No significant differences were found in the pre-test among three groups in terms of the total mean scores, content scores, organization scores, vocabulary scores, language use and mechanics. 2) The results of the post-test showed statistically significant differences between the experimental groups and the control

28. group in the total mean scores, content scores, organization scores, vocabulary scores, language use scores and mechanics Scores using ANOVA and ANCOVA. 3). No significant differences were found among three groups in the pre-questionnaire using Kruskal Wallis H-test.

29. 4). The results of the post-questionnaire showed that there were significant differences between the strategy instructed groups and the non-instructed groups. • In the knowledge of idea-mapping, brainstorming, outlining, and organization, no significant differences were found between Group A and B, but significant differences occurred between Group B and C, and between Group A and C.

30. In the knowledge of revising strategies, significant differences were found between Group A and B, and between Group B and C but no differences occurred between Group A and C. • In applying brainstorming, idea-mapping, outlining, organization, significant differences occurred between the experimental groups and the control group whereas in applying revision strategies,

31. there were significant differences between Group A and B, and between Group B and C. • There were no significant differences among three groups in syntactic planning as well as lexical planning and non-instructed strategies.

32. This finding further confirmed positive effects of the explicit instruction on the students’ perceived knowledge and application of writing strategies.

33. The total scores or sub-scores were related to pre-writing strategies, revising words and checking and correcting mistakes. • The total and sub-scores were not related to planning sentences, choosing the major words, revising the content, revising the organization and revising the sentences.

34. Implications • The theoretical implications of the present study are to enhance the understanding of the nature of L2 writing in SLA and the role of strategy awareness in writing. • Findings from this study may enrich our knowledge of the nature of L2 writing in SLA: L2 writing is a complex recursive process, in which many factors may influence the writer’s behaviour and

35. performance. A writer’sperceivedknowledge and application of writing strategies are two of the many factors, which can be changed by explicit instruction of writing strategies and the learners’ awareness of writing strategies. • The statistically significant differences obtained from this study suggest that

36. explicit input of meta-cognitive writing strategies can help Chinese EFL graduate • students at an intermediate level enhance their knowledge of writing strategies, their application of writing strategies and their writing performance of argumentative essays in the end. This finding confirms

37. those researchers (e.g. Oxford, 1990; Cohen, 1998; Berg, 1999, Macaro, 2001; Sassaki ,2004, & Yang et. al. 2006) with strong beliefs on the positive effects of the strategy instruction. • By exploring the various functions that the learners’ perceptions perform in the writing process and product levels, this

38. study illustrates the important role of the writer’ s perceptions in influencing their writing behaviour and performance. • Research implications • The innovation of this study was to make a direct link between the subjects’

39. knowledge of specific writing strategies and the frequency of their application of those strategies, their use of specific writing strategies and their analytic scores of theirperformance on the writing task with a relatively large sample.

40. Limitations Like most empirical studies involving human subjects and a number of independent variables, this research has limitations. 1)Time constraints.

41. 2) Thewriting topic. • 3) The subjects.

42. Questions and comments are highly appreciated! Thanks.