A Study Of Applying Metacognitive Strategies To Develop English Writing Competence For Non-English Majors

In 1973, Piaget defined the term writing as"one engaged in reflecting abstraction to a higher level while simultaneously being engaged in the sensorimotor activity of putting symbols on paper". The definition indicated that writing necessarily engaged a deeper, reflective component and the social act of writing shared similar, overlapping cognitive functions with metacognition, which inspired the author to study the effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on writing performance.Ninety-eight students from Branch of Changchun Normal University were chosen as the subjects to participate in the study. The subjects were divided into two groups. Group One was the experimental group who received the metacognitive strategy training in writing embedded in the regular curriculums while Group Two was the control group who only received routine courses. Then some instruments such as the questionnaire, pre- and post writing tests were taken into use to investigate (1) the possibility for non-English majors to use metacognitive strategies more often than before if they have metacognitive strategy training; (2) whether the writing proficiency of non-English majors can be improved through metacognitive strategy training; (3) whether metacognitive strategy training is equally effective to the non-English majors at different levels.Based on the repeated analysis of statistical data, the following results about the effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on writing performance have been explored: (1) Non-English majors increased the frequency of metacognitive strategy use through metacognitive strategy training. (2) There's no significant difference between the two groups after training in writing and non-English major's overall writing proficiency wasn't significantly improved through metacognitive strategy training. (3) Metacognitive strategy training wasn't equally effective to the non-English majors at different levels. Significant improvement was made by intermediate achievers in both the use of metacognitive strategies and writing proficiency. Additionally, the author found that students couldn't fully acquire metacognitive strategies during the metacognitive strategy instruction and they couldn't combine metacognitive strategies with English writing perfectly to improve their writing proficiency.The results of the present study showed that whether the metacognitive strategy training had positive role in writing remains to be determined in the future study. More researches could be done by second language learners to see how and when they employ metacognitive strategies.