2017 3rd Annual International Conference on Modern Education and Social Science (MESS 2017) ISBN: 978-1-60595-450-9 An Empirical Research on Senior High School Students English Writing Strategies (EWS) Yan-Rong JIN 1,a and Hong-Gang LIU 2,b* 1 School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin, China, 2 School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin, China, Email: a jinyr036@nenu.edu.cn, b liuhg213@nenu.edu.cn *Corresponding author Keywords: Senior high school students, English writing strategies Abstract. English writing strategies are very important factors that affect learners English writing ability. This current study enrolled 458 senior high school students to explore their English writing strategies. Utilizing questionnaire and interviews, the study yielded the results showing that senior high school students used various English writing strategies in their English writing process, but not often. Among these English writing strategies, while-writing strategies were the most preferred and the revising strategies ranked the lowest. Based on the above analysis, this paper also puts forward some practical pedagogical suggestions. Introduction In recent years, researchers have paid more attention to the study of English writing strategies in the field of second language learning strategies. Nevertheless, most of research participants were university students and researches whose participants were middle school students were much less. Research abroad on English writing strategies mainly focused on the study of some specific writing strategies, such as, planning strategies (e.g. Arndt, 1987; Manchon and Roca de Larios, et al, 2008), native-language strategies (e.g. Woodal, 2003), revision strategies (e.g. Kobayashi & Rinnert, 2001) and so on, but fewer studied writing strategies covered all stages of the writing process. At the same time, in the past studies on English writing strategies and composing processes, the main methods of data collection were questionnaires, interviews and think aloud protocol (Yu-Ching Annie Ou, 2013). By reviewing the previous literature on English writing strategies from research participants and methods, the present study will invite senior high school students as the research participants, employ the tool of questionnaires and interviews to describe their English writing strategies in their whole writing process. Research Design This survey was conducted among 458 senior high school students (220 males and 238 females) from 8 different classes in two grades of two schools in Changchun city to address the following specific question: What English writing strategies do the senior high school students use in their English writing process? Writing strategy questionnaire in this study was adopted from Petric & Czarl s (2003) writing strategy questionnaire. This questionnaire was designed on the basis of Oxford s (1990) language learning strategy theory and Flower and Hayes s (1981) cognitive process of writing theory. The reliability (Cronbach s alpha) of writing strategy questionnaire in this study was 0.84, greater than 0.80, which indicated it had a high reliability. And Cronbach s alpha of each sub-dimension was 0.64, 0.69, 0.77, which was also reasonable. 449
Results and Discussions In accordance with Oxford s scoring for language learning strategy frequency and combined with the data in this study, the author made the following analysis on EWS used by senior high school students. As can be seen from Table 1, the while-writing strategies were used most frequently in the writing process, with the mean of 3.09, higher than 3. What was followed was pre-writing strategies, the mean of which was 2.92. The mean of revising strategies was the lowest, which was 2.71, implying students sometimes used this kind of writing strategies. The mean of total English writing strategies was 2.91, ranging from 2.5 to 3.4, which could be concluded that students used all the EWS in three stages of writing with a medium frequency. Table 1. Results of descriptive analysis of students overall use in EWS. Min Max M SD While-writing strategies 1.57 4.50 3.09 0.54 Pre-writing strategies 1.00 4.57 2.92 0.70 Revising strategies 1.25 4.38 2.71 0.56 TEWS 1.65 4.28 2.91 0.48 Notes: TEWS =Total Score of English Writing Strategies In a word, the most frequently used writing strategies were while-writing strategies (M=3.09, SD=0.54) and then pre-writing strategies (M=2.92, SD=0.70), while the revising strategies (M=2.71, SD=0.56) were used of less. This result is very similar with Chen Yan s (2009) findings. Chen Yan (2009) did an investigation on English writing strategies used by 116 non-english major students from Dezhou University by writing tests, questionnaires and interviews, the results showed us students used while-strategies most commonly, next was pre-writing strategies and the least used was the revising strategies. Although the subjects in Chen Yan s study were different from those of this study, all of them are English learners. To some extent, they could explain the same phenomenon. In the whole writing process, while-writing strategies were the most frequently used by students (M=3.09, SD=0.54), which indicated that students were good at using some favorable while-writing strategies to finish their writing tasks in their writing process. While-writing strategies included a total of 5 sub-strategies, which were compensation, memory, meta-cognitive, cognitive and social strategies. Statistics in Table 2 showed that in this stage, the mean of compensation strategies (M=3.59, SD=0.67) ranked the highest and that of social strategies (M=2.54, SD=1.20) was the lowest. The other three ones were in between, which respectively were memory strategies (M=3.25, SD=1.20), meta-cognitive strategies (M=2.91, SD=1.25) and cognitive strategies (M=2.76, SD=0.72). Table 2. Results of descriptive analysis of students while-writing strategies. Compensation strategies 1.40 5.00 3.59 0.67 Memory strategies 1.00 5.00 3.25 1.20 Meta-cognitive strategies 1.00 5.00 2.91 1.25 Cognitive strategies 1.00 4.67 2.76 0.72 Social strategies 1.00 5.00 2.54 1.20 Specifically, in while-writing stage, the most frequently used strategies among students were compensation strategies (M=3.59, SD=0.67). The result is similar to Pang Hui s (2012) conclusions. In 2012, Pang Hui examined English writing strategies used by 370 non-english major freshmen at Normal College of Qingdao University and found the compensation strategy (M=4.14, SD=0.56) scored the highest in the six strategies. Compensation strategies enable learners to use the new language for either comprehension or production despite of limitations in knowledge. These 450
strategies are intended to make up for all inadequate repertoire of grammar and, especially, of vocabulary (Oxford, 1990: 47). Therefore, in this study, students preferred to employ compensation strategies to overcome some writing problems or difficulties encountered in their writing process. Memory strategies (M=3.25, SD=1.20) ranked the second, which suggested senior students sometimes used this strategy by reference to Oxford s scoring for frequency. This finding is exactly consistent with what Oxford (1990: 40) has brought forward: although memory strategies can be powerful contributors to language learning, language students rarely report using these strategies either because they do not use memory strategies very much or because they are unaware of how often they actually do employ memory strategies. In a word, the use of above two writing strategies implied that students could employ some elementary English writing strategies, which would block their development of writing ability over time. The least used strategy was social strategy, with the mean of 2.54 and standard deviation of 1.20, which showed that students were reluctant to ask others for help when they encountered some writing problems. In pre-writing stage, meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies were mainly involved. A bit more specific, meta-cognitive strategies mainly covered making an outline, revising writing requirements and listing timetable for writing; cognitive strategies included referring to excellent compositions and writing down related words. From Table 3, the mean of meta-cognitive strategies was 2.97, between 2.5 and 3.4, indicating students sometimes used this kind of strategies, while the mean of cognitive strategies was 2.81, suggesting meta-cognitive strategies were used more frequently than cognitive strategies by students before they wrote. Table 3. Results of descriptive analysis of students pre-writing strategies. Meta-cognitive strategies 1.00 5.00 2.97 0.70 Cognitive strategies 1.00 5.00 2.81 0.99 The fact that students showed higher use of meta-cognitive strategies in pre-writing stages might be related with the nature of this stage itself just as Chen Yan (2009) explained. Pre-writing stage is also called planning stage, in which students mainly concentrate on what their writing topics and goals are, how to organize their compositions better, what related words they may use to help them start writing as quickly as possible in the next stage. Therefore, students will spend much time on meta-cognitive strategies instead of cognitive strategies which include referring to some excellent compositions and so on. By reference to the data in Table 1, it was pointed out that the mean of revising strategies was 2.71, less than 3, indicating that students rarely used the revising strategies after writing. Revising strategies (See in Table 4) mainly included 5 sub-strategies, respectively, meta-cognitive, cognitive, compensation, affective and social strategies. Among these strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, with mean and standard deviation being 2.89 and 0.60, were employed most frequently whereas social strategy (M=2.37, SD=1.27) was used the least. In between were cognitive strategies (M=2.72, SD=0.73), compensation strategy (M=2.48, SD=1.35) and affective strategy (M=2.42, SD=0.97). Table 4. Results of descriptive analysis of students revising strategies. Meta-cognitive strategies 1.00 4.67 2.89 0.60 Cognitive strategies 1.00 4.67 2.72 0.73 Compensation strategy 1.00 5.00 2.48 1.35 Affective strategy 1.00 5.00 2.42 0.97 Social strategy 1.00 5.00 2.37 1.27 Still in Table 4, it also can be seen that compensation strategy and social strategy involved only one individual strategy (Min=1.00, Mix=5.00). Seen in Appendix, compensation strategy was 451
illustrated by item 22 (M=2.48, SD=1.35) and social strategy was embodied by item 35 (M=2.37, SD=1.27). In addition, of all revising strategies, only standard deviations of compensation strategy and social strategy were higher than 1.00, which signified that some students used these two strategies very frequently while others might seldom or never use them. Among all the revising strategies, social strategy and affective strategy were used with lower frequencies, reflecting students were not willing to use social and affective strategy when they revised their works. This might be related to the following reasons. The main reason lies in that senior high school students are living a special period when they gradually develop their own independent personality and possess a strong sense of self-esteem. As a result, when they revise their compositions, they are unwilling to communicate with or ask for help from their teachers or classmates for fear that they may lose face. Another reason may be related with students attitudes towards the revisions. In the interviews, when being asked why they don t like revise their compositions with their classmates or teachers, most of them answered like this it is of no use to revise the compositions with my classmates because our writing levels are very close. or I usually do not benefit very much from my teacher s feedbacks in writing because she only gives us writing grades. or Revising with my classmates is to waste my time. On the whole, from the words of interviewees, it revealed that students attitudes towards writing revisions played a very important role in their use of revising strategies, therefore, English teachers should raise students awareness of revisions in their future writing teaching to promote their students writing ability. Implications Based on the combination of Flower & Hayes process writing theory and Oxford s theory of LLS, the present study described students EWS in every stage of their writing process. In terms of this question, some suggestions are put forward as following: Firstly, as the results showed in Table 1, students use frequency of pre-ews (M=2.92, SD=0.70) ranked the second. Referring to Oxford s criteria for scoring the frequency, the frequency of pre-ews was within the medium level, which gives teachers some inspirations that they should pay more attention to students pre-writing strategies in the future teaching. The most important thing during pre-writing stage for teachers is to stimulate students writing interest and enthusiasm, help them build up their confidence and alleviate their fear for writing step by step. Hence, during pre-writing stage, teachers should select some attractive writing topics related to students study or daily life. During the practical teaching, teacher can ask their students to think deeply about writing topics they ve chosen, encourage them to do free talking and write down some related words, sentences and ideas as many as they can at first. Then teachers divide their students into several groups in which students are available to exchange mutual thoughts, classify their writing materials, eliminate the same materials and finally integrate a suit of new ones. In this way, teachers can make sure every student has inspirations about writing topics, enlighten their writing ideas and overcome their writing difficulties. Next, teachers can hand out some excellent compositions which are related to chosen topics, ask students to read them carefully, think and imitate the author s writing thoughts and organizations. After finishing material preparations and brainstorming, students own writing thoughts have come into shape. At this moment, students can be asked to make an outline according to their own writing thoughts. Then it moves to the writing stage. The previous process of preparing language materials is beneficially for students to utilize planning strategies, cooperation strategies, outlining strategies in a relaxing environment, which is constructive to stimulate students writing interest and enthusiasm. Secondly, the data in Table 1 showed students sometimes used while-ews (M=3.09, SD=0.54) in their writing process and they used them out of balance. Only certain while-ews were used and the rests were rarely used. Therefore, English teachers should actively advocate students to utilize various English writing strategies in their English writing stage, such as, select conjunctive words properly, highlight topic sentences, simplify the complicated sentences, reread perfect compositions and so on. What s more, students should be encouraged to avoid making some simple mistakes. If students come across some new words or phrases, they are encouraged to replace them with their 452
corresponding homogeneities. Moreover, students can use L1 strategy in their L2 compositions, repeatedly look new words up in a dictionary to actively assist them finish writing tasks efficiently. Finally, students are advised to turn to their teachers and classmates for help to decrease factors that might hinder their writing and create good conditions for their compositions. Thirdly, it is well known that revising stage lays emphasis on modifications and polishes. In this stage, students can get many beneficial feedbacks from mistakes they ve made through repeated modifications for the sake of avoiding the same mistakes again next time, which also can stimulate their writing interest and fully mobilize their initiative so as to achieve English writing teaching aims. However, revising strategies (M=2.71, SD=0.56) were the least used by students, so teachers should take some useful actions to improve this situation. There are diverse forms of modifications in revising stage. The first form is self-revisions that students can check their own compositions by reading the whole passage, focusing on details and modifying some apparent mistakes easily found by themselves. The second form is classmates mutual revisions. The student can exchange his/her composition with his/her classmates to make mutual modifications, which can help them notice some mistakes they are unable to find by themselves. Meanwhile, this way is one of approaches for students to learn from each other and absorb others merits. The third form is teachers revisions. Generally, teachers will make more accurate and comprehensive corrections. Teachers should make comprehensive corrections from words to contents, give students some constructive suggestions for writing and zealously compliment students writing highlights. References [1] Arndt, V., Six writers in search of texts: A protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing, ELT Journal. 41 (1987) 257-267. [2] Chen Yan, An investigation of Chinese non-english majors English writing strategies. Jinan: Shandong University, 2009. [3] Linda Flower & John R. Hayes., A cognitive process theory of writing, College Composition and Communication. 32 (1981) 365-387. [4] Kobayashi, H., & Rinnert, C., Factors relating to EFL Writers discourse level revision skills, International Journal of English Studies. 1 (2001) 71-101. [5] Manchon, R.M., & de Larios, J.R., on the temporal nature of planning in L1 and L2 composing, Language Learning. 57 (2007) 549 593. [6] Oxford, R., Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know, Heinle & Heinle Publishers Inc., U.S., 1990. [7] Pang Hui, A study on non-english majors English writing strategies, Education Exploration. 3 (2012) 64-65. [8] Petric, B. & Czarl, B., Validating a writing strategy questionnaire, System. 31 (2003) 188-215. [9] Wong, A.T.Y., Writers mental representation of the intended audience and of the rhetorical purpose for writing and the strategies that they employed when they composed, System. 33 (2005) 29 47. [10] Yu-Ching Annie Ou, Writing strategies: perceptions, experience, and use in undergraduate and graduate ESL students. Purdue University, West Lafayette, 2013. 453