| The present study mainly investigates the factors that may influence ESL learners'L2 writing, that is, reading before writing and the amount of L1 planning. The aim of the study is to discuss whether the two factors have effects on ESL high-proficient learners'L2 writing, and to find out the effective way of improving L2 writing.24 English majors divided into three groups participate in the study, with two groups of them given topic-related reading material before writing. All the participants are asked to write a composition and verbalize their mental activities while composing the writing task. Besides, questionnaire and post-writing interview are conducted to ensure the validity of the study.The results demonstrate that ESL writers who are provided topic-related reading materials before writing generate better compositions than those who start writing without reading input materials. In addition, both Chinese and English reading material can help improve the quality of the compositions, especially in content and vocabulary. While negative effects exist in that writers are not able to generate shining points apart from the ideas in the reading materials. As for the role of L1, the findings indicate that the amount of L1 planning does not influence writers'L2 writing scores. However, most participants still approve that L1 is helpful for their L2 writing. The analysis of the think-aloud protocols indicates that participants with high writing scores are found to do better in organizational planning than those who get low writing scores. Moreover, research data reveal that no matter which language the topic-related reading material is, the amount of L1 planning will not be influenced.The findings of the study provide instructive implications to L2 writing teaching:teachers should apply topic-related reading material appropriately in L2 writing classroom and cultivate students'planning strategy to improve students'writing proficiency. |
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