Investigation Of Metacognitive Strategies In EFL Writing

Since 1970s, metacognition has become a "buzz-word" in the field of applied linguistics. The tenet of this theory includes metacognitive knowledge as well as metacognitive strategies which is the highlight of the present study. Among all the learning strategies, metacognitive strategies are higher-order executive skills which involve consciously planning, monitoring and evaluating. Once having a good command of metacognitive strategies, learners are triggered to be more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weakness, and to self-direct learning process.The proposal of metacognition theory is seminal in that some experiments have been conducted to see the training effects of metacognitive strategies in learning specific skills. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of corresponding metacognitive research in writing skill. As a productive skill, writing demands not only the language proficiency but also the skills in using it. As a result, the thesis applies metacognitive strategies to EFL writing in order to find an optimal learning approach.At the onset of the thesis, the author articulates the significance of the thesis followed with explanation of such fundamental concepts as metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive strategies as well as learning strategies. In addition to an overall theoretical discussion, a pilot empirical study about application of metacognitive strategies to EFL writing has been conducted. The author addressed two research questions: 1. Could metacognitive-strategy training improve metacognitive awareness? 2. What is the relationship between metacognitive strategies and EFL writing performance? Both Quantitative and qualitative standpoints are analyzed to investigate these two research questions. To be specific, the thesis is integrated by six chapters, each of which is relatively independent but concentrates on a specific topic with the core of metacognitive strategies.Chapter One portrays the background and objective of the study. Many students, after learning English for years, are predisposed to end in failure when writing a composition. Thus, there is still a hiatus of how to develop learners' writing ability. Since the upsurge of metacognition theory, the author finds a breakthrough for this task.Chapter Two specifically articulates the proposition and frameworks of metacognition theory. On the basis of previous frameworks, the author concludes a framework which involves metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies, and then appraises the relationship between them.Chapter Three addresses a theoretical discussion about impacts of metacognitive strategies on EFL writing. The author subsumes three learning strategies like metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. Metacognitive strategies are more essential than other strategies in EFL writing, which is substantiated by the discussion of product-oriented and process-oriented approach.Chapter Four is concerned with a detailed description of the design of the wholestudy. The present study involves altogether 60 first-year English majors from Huaxia College attached to Wuhan University of Technology, thus forming experimental group and control group. Instruments, such as metacognitive-strategy questionnaire, writing test and interview are used.Chapter Five analyzes data through a series of procedure. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are stated in order to tap final results which extrapolate that metacognitive-strategy training can raise writers' metacognitive awareness, and that the training is foolproof to improved writing proficiency.Last chapter ends with pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions. The study implicates that integrating metacognitive strategy training into classroom instruction can urge students' autonomy and the issue on how to successfully learning English writing can be ironed out.