A Study Of Writing Apprehension In EFL Writing Processes

Writing is one of the basic skills for Chinese EFL learners to master. It is also one of the most difficult skills for Chinese EFL learners to learn. As a very complex process that involves affective elements including anxiety, writing has attracted attention from many researchers and language teachers. Given the importance of affective factors in the writing processes and the limitations of previous studies on writing apprehension, the study aims at exploring the general situation of writing apprehension of Chinese EFL learners in their writing processes and recognizing the sources of writing apprehension at different writing stages. It focused on the following three perspectives, situation of writing apprehension at different writing stages, the reasons why writing apprehension occurs, and the ways to reduce the writing apprehension.These research questions are addressed mainly through think-aloud protocols, supplemented by open-ended questionnaires, interviews and essays. The participants were eight Chinese university students who had studied English as a foreign language. Four of them were English majors and the other four were non-English majors. All of them were required to finish a writing task respectively and try to verbalize their thoughts in the writing processes at the same time. Their verbalizations were recorded and transcribed for further analysis. Open-ended questionnaires and written products were collected. Then retrospective interviews were conducted. The data gained from multiple sources was analyzed to explore the situation of writing apprehension, the reasons for it and the ways to reduce it.The results indicated that the situations of writing apprehension of these participants in writing processes were similar. Writing apprehension was not fixed, but could change over the writing processes. The writing apprehensions appeared at the pre-writing stage but the degree of it was lower. The level of writing apprehension climbed and reached the highest point at the during-writing stage. While at the post-writing stage, the degree of writing apprehension slumped. The reasons for the writing apprehension mainly included writing title, the size of vocabulary, self-expectation, self-perception, self-confidence, self-evaluation and teachers'evaluation. The reasons for writing apprehension at different writing stages varied.The study concludes with a summarization of the main findings of the present study. It provides implications for writing teaching and writing training. Teachers are advised to introduce group discussion and resources to help students, and to teach writing combined with reading. It is suggested that they should help students establish confidence and provide constructive feedback to students'writings. The limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies are finally provided.