A Study Of The Medium Of Thought In The English Writing Processes Of Chinese EFL Students

Writing is a complex cognitive psychological process, so the forms of medium of thought during the L2 writing processes have great influence on the written products. This study is aimed at exploring the specific forms of medium of thought during the L2 writing processes of Chinese EFL learners, and investigating the relationship between medium of thought and L2 written products as well as the factors that affect the use of medium of thought during L2 writing processes.These research objectives were investigated qualitatively and quantitatively through think-aloud protocols, an open-ended questionnaire, stimulated recalls, and retrospective interviews. The participants were 30 college students from three different universities. All of them were required to write two writing tasks respectively and verbalize all of their cognitive activities, mainly their medium of thought, during the whole L2 writing processes. The results indicated that both the L1 and L2 were alternately employed as the medium of thought in L2 writing processes. The two media performed a variety of different functions in a cooperative and compensatory way in L2 writing processes. The reasons for EFL writers'choice of the medium of thought could be attributed to their educational background, personal experiences, perceptions of L2 writing and English linguistic proficiency. In addition, text difficulty level exerted great influences on the use of the medium of thought in the L2 writing processes.The study finally points out that more attention should be paid to the role of L1 and L2 as the medium of thought in the writing processes, and that teachers should help students foster correct writing attitudes towards the skills in L1 and L2 use. It suggests that effective English writing instruction should teach students how to make full use of the positive functions of the medium of thought to develop their learning potentials, and that teaching materials should match students'linguistic proficiency Finally the limitations of this study and suggestions for further study are provided.