First Language Influence On EFL Writing Process And Production

The present study is an attempt to examine the first language influence on EFL writing process as well as production, which includes: 1) Do different writing processes (written directly in a L2 and written first in L1 and then translated into L2) and proficiency levels lead to a difference in the quality of students' writing product? 2) Are our research findings in a Chinese context consistent with findings of earlier researches done in other contexts?The results of the research study are generally consistent with the ones findings of the researches conducted previously both in and outside and in China, that is, different writing processes and language proficiency levels do lead to a difference in the quality of the students' writing output, and that low proficiency students benefit more from translated writing.The present study has also produced findings different from those of the previous researches and the reason for the difference might be that earlier researches had bilinguals or languages other than Chinese as their first language.With the Chinese college non-English major students as research subjects, the present study may make contributions, if any, to the theoretical development of the field by providing the special case in the corresponding field.