On Metacognitive Strategy Training For English Majors' Writing

English writing, as the most comprehensive skill of English learning,has been a big headache haunting both learners and teachers. It is said thatsuccessful language learners have their own special way of learning, so itis in the process of writing. In order to help students produce betterwriting outcomes, it is important for language instructors and researchersto train them related strategies for writing. The study of metacognition is anewly heated field in applied linguistics. Metacognition and metacognitivestrategies, as knowledge and strategies of "thinking about thinking", igniteone's thinking and can lead to higher learning and better performance.Recent researches suggest that metacognition plays a critical role insuccessful writing. But in China few EFL/ESL students have received anyformal metacognition instructions on the promotion of language skills,especially on writing.This study aims to help English majors better their writing by trainingtheir metacognitive strategies. This question was posed in the experiment:How does the training course for English writing differently impact on thelearners' ratings of metacognitive strategies and their writing competence?By the 15 weeks' training course, the experiment offers data to find thatthere is a significant difference of both writing competence andmetacognitive rating between the experimental group and the controlgroup, the successful and unsuccessful writers. And we also find howdifferently the training course impacts on the learners with different ratingsof metacognitive strategies. Those successful writers with highly improved metacognitive rating know how to plan their writing, set a specific goal,select the appropriate writing strategies, monitor the use of strategy, use acombination of strategies, manage the time, and finally evaluate thewriting process.Six parts as follows are included in this thesis.Introduction provides the background of the study, the purpose of thestudy and the structure of the thesis.From the perspective of inefficiency of teaching methods anddeficiency of related strategy instructions, Chapter One analysizes thepresent situation, especially the problems existing in English writing inChina.Chapter Two illustrates the relationship between metacognitivestrategies and writing by introducing the definitions of related theories andtheir functions in writing, including learning strategies, metacognition,cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, language learning strategytraining and its models, etc.By reviewing the literature on the previous study of metacognitivestrategy training for English writing, Chapter Three emphasizes theimportance of the study.Chapter Four presents the experiment and related analysis onmetacognitive strategy training for English writing of English majors fromForeign Language College of Hunan Agriculture University.Finally comes the conclusion that instructions to improve learners'writing metacognition should be projected in writing activities. Writinginstructors should be trained how to implement strategy instructions andthen teach learners the metacognitive strategies of how to solve the problems in writing.