A Research On Indirect Writing Strategies

Writing is an important language skill. However, for most of college students, their English writing level is still low. One reason is that students do not master right learning methods. Therefore, scholars in China begin paying attention to studying writing strategies. Researches on writing strategies cover different aspects, including the relationship between writing anxiety, belief and writing strategies, the application of meta-cognitive strategies to English writing and etc. However, a few studies focus on indirect writing strategies. Meanwhile, most of the previous studies take college students as subjects, but only a few researches pay attention to vocational non-English-major students.The present study selects80non-English-major vocational students from Xi’an Polytechnic University to survey the using situation of indirect writing strategies in the whole writing process. Meanwhile, it researches the differences of strategies use between high and low proficiency students. Additionally, it also studies the correlation between writing achievements and individual strategies. This study adopts questionnaire, writing test and interview to collect data and then analyzes the data by SPSS19.0. This questionnaire employs Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning. The results of the present study show that:1) First, comparing with the pre-writing and revising stages, students use more writing strategies in the while-writing stage.2) The indirect writing strategies are not frequently used in the whole writing process. Especially the meta-cognitive and social strategies are less frequently used in the whole writing process. However, in pre-writing stage, students prefer using strategy of identifying the purpose of a language task, strategy of encouraging yourself and strategy of developing cultural understanding. In while-writing stage, students often use strategy of linking with already known material, strategy of taking your emotional temperature and strategy of clarification. In revising stage, students are more inclined to use strategy of self-monitoring, strategy of listening to your body and strategy of cooperating with others.3) HPSs are better at using indirect writing strategies than LPSs. HPSs are more willing to use strategy of linking with already known material, strategy of planning, strategy of lowering one’s anxiety, strategy of asking for clarification and strategy of cooperating with proficient language users.4) Most of sub-strategies of meta-cognitive and affective strategies are positively associated with writing achievements, but most of the social strategies have no relationship with writing achievements. For example, strategy of planning, strategy of paying attention, strategy of lowering one’s anxiety and are significantly related to writing achievements.The results show that indirect writing strategies have positive influences on writing achievements. Teachers should not only train students how to use indirect writing strategies but also encourage students to use indirect writing strategies. Students should learn and then master right learning methods. In addition, for further study, enlarging the number of samples can get more information to enrich the researches on writing strategies.