A Study Of Chinese Middle School Students' Metacognitive Strategies In English Writing

Metacognition was put forward by Flavell firstly. It is commonly defined as"cognition of cognition". As an important component of metacognition and learning strategy system, the importance of metacognitive strategy has been to some extent well-studied. In the studies of learning strategy system, Oxford classifies learning strategy into two categories, i.e. direct strategy which involves memory strategy, cognitive strategy and compensating strategy and indirect strategy which involves metacognitive strategy, social (affective) strategy (Oxford 1990, p. 137). O'Malley and Chamot (1990) classifies learning strategy into three categories, i.e. metacognitive strategy, cognitive strategy and social (affective) strategy, in which metacognitive strategy is considered at a level above other strategies (O'Malley and Chamot 1990, p. 137-138). In Zheng Ming's classification, metacognitive strategy is also considered at a level above other strategies (Zheng Ming, 2000). The status of metacognitive strategy mainly lies in the differences between metacognitive strategy and cognitive strategy. Metacognitive strategy is mainly concerned with monitoring and regulating at a macro-level, to plan, monitor and evaluate learning, while cognitive strategy is more concerned with the operation at the micro-level and direct management of specific tasks. Metacognitive strategy is more concerned with monitoring and regulating at a macro-level, which not only influences the learning process itself but also affects the employment of various strategies in this process, such as cognitive, communicative, social (affective) strategies etc.So the increasing numbers of studies have been undertaken to investigate the relationship between the use of metacognitive strategy and different learning tasks. In the past more than twenty years, quite a lot of researches have been conducted on the relationship between metacognitive strategy use and second language acquisition, but there are few researches relating to the relationship between metacognitive strategy use and EFL writing, especially in the context of senior middle school. Accordingly in the situation, the dissertation makes an attempt to investigate the use of metacognitive strategy in EFL writing among senior middle school students.The present study develops on the basis of four research questions: (1) What is the overall level of the metacognitive strategies used by the subjects in English writing? (2) Are there significant differences between male writers and female writers in the use of metacognitive strategies? (3) Are there significant differences between successful writers and less successful writers in the use of metacognitive strategies? (4) What is the relationship between metacognitive strategy preferences and English writing proficiency?In order to answer these four questions, the author conducts a quantitative study on a sample of 102 students from Zi Shui middle school with a metacognitive strategy questionnaire and two English writing tests. Then the data is input into SPSS and undergone descriptive statistics, t-test, and correlation analysis.The results indicate that: (1) The overall level of metacognitive strategy use in English writing among senior middle school students is not high, (mean=2.5) which means that senior middle students sometimes use those metacognitive strategies in English writing.(2) Through T tests, no significant differences have been found between male writers and female writers in the use of metacognitive strategies (3) The significant differences do exist between successful writers and less successful writers.(4) There is a positive correlation existing between the metacognitive strategy use and English writing proficiency through correlation analysis.In the present study, it reveals that the use of metacognitive strategy has an important influence on senior middle school students'English writing performance. However, they don't have strong metacognitive awareness. So the author gives some suggestions on how to improve their metacognitive awareness and help them master the use of metacognitive strategy in English writing, consequently improve their English writing proficiency. In addition, there isn't without restrictions in this research and undoubtedly more improvement should be taken into consideration in it.