An Empirical Study Of Meta-cognitive Strategy Training In College English Writing Instruction

English writing ability, one of the four basic language skills, has been highlighted as a core skill in the foreign language learning and teaching (Wang Lifei,2005). College English writing can serve as a significant indicator of college students’ English proficiency and application ability, also a focus of various kinds of English proficiency tests (Tan Yujin,2006). However, it is undoubtedly an enormous challenge for EFL students in China to enhance writing ability, especially for those non-English major students who are short of systematic writing training.Multinomial investigations show that students with bad writing performance usually have a common characteristic:they fail to realize that certain strategies are supposed to be used in writing, when encounter difficulties they can not do self-adjustment or seek the most suitable strategies to study effectively (HuangMei,2008). In this situation, writing strategy research has been a new focus of English teachers and researchers in China since1990s. On top of the other writing strategies, the importance of meta-cognitive strategy in English writing is becoming more highly valued. However, the research on meta-cognitive strategy training is relatively inadequate in relation to non-English majors. Besides, most training programs can not be promoted effectively for the variety of training schemes, the complexity of training process, even though too much time and energy have been devoted to the training by teachers and students.The present research aims at cracking the nut by working on the problem of how to integrate meta-cognitive strategy training with college English writing instruction in natural environment so as to enhance students’ writing proficiency without too much burden. In order to verify the effectiveness of the approach, an experiment is to be conducted on the basis of the hypothesis:through the well-designed training, the learners’ awareness of using meta-cognitive strategy in writing will be promoted and their writing proficiency will be further developed, too.The training program is to be conducted among non-English majors with the help of Jucuu correction network. Questionnaires and writing tests are also used to test students’ use of meta-cognitive strategies and their writing level, in an effort to find out whether there exists the correlation between meta-cognitive strategy use and English writing improvement. And the classroom instruction is integrated with meta-cognitive strategy training to develop students’awareness accordingly. The research adopts direct approach to explain and exemplify how to use the strategies to raise their strategy awareness. Moreover, plenty of practice and timely feedback are followed to strengthen their consciousness.The research questions intended to be answered are as follows.1. What is the general situation of college students (referring to non-English majors in this thesis) using meta-cognitive strategies in their English writing? And do they use them consciously or unconsciously?2. Will students’ meta-cognitive awareness be raised through the well-designed training in English writing class?3. Will meta-cognitive strategy training improve students’ writing performance in the end?The results obtained from pre-tests and post-tests, observation and interview during and after the training show that students’ meta-cognitive awareness can be raised through meta-cognitive strategies training in writing class instruction. Trough the systematic training, they can apply the strategies consciously and autonomously to their writing practice. Moreover, the training does contribute to the improvement of students’ writing performance. The writing score of the experimental group is significantly better than that of the control group after training. All in all, the training has enhanced the learners" awareness in meta-cognitive strategy use, which, in turn, has improved their English writing proficiency to a considerable degree. Therefore, it is urgent and significant for teachers to integrate mete-cognitive strategy training with writing class instruction to help students enhance their writing performance.