The Effects Of L2 Thinking On Secondary-level Learners' English Writing Performance

In this thesis a case-study approach is employed to explore the L2 (English) writing process of 20 senior high school students who come from No.2 middle school of Liantang county. The study mainly explored the function of L2 thinking in the writing process of the second language and the effects of L2 thinking on second language writing performance. This research aims to find out how the student writers use L2 (English) in L2 (English) composing process; how much L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) use are in their composing process; the correlation between the L2 thinking and L2 writing performance; the correlation between L2 thinking and their English proficiency, as well as the correlation between the student writers'L2 writing performance and the student writers'beliefs upon L2 (English) use in the L2 composing process. The present study also lunched an investigation into the frequency of L2 thinking in three categories (idea generation, idea organization, text production). Afterwards, an one-month L2 thinking training was given to those who gained low marks in L2 writing. After the training, the amount of L2 thinking used by the students writers was compared with that before the training. The present study employs think-aloud method to obtain main data, meanwhile data from the questionnaires, interviews are also used to do a complement for the main data. Quantitive and qualitative analyses are adopted to analyze the data.The major findings are summarized as follows:(1) The L2 writing process for secondary-level EFL learners is a bilingual event; both L1 and L2 appear in their writing process.(2) The amount of L2 thinking use in L2 writing may vary with their English proficiency; L2 thinking is positively correlated with the writers'L2 writing performance and their L2 proficiency.(3) Low-level English learners hold relatively low L2 (English) beliefs upon English writing; High-level English learners hold relatively high L2 (English) beliefs upon English writing. EFL learners who hold low L2 beliefs tend to employ L1 thinking when they are composing writings. Therefore, Chinglish often appears in their compositions.(4) L2 (English) use is less than L1 use in the thinking activities of both idea-generation and idea-organization; While in the activity of text-production, L2 use is more than L1 use;(5) After the training of L2 thinking, the amount of L2 thinking of the secondary-level EFL students rises slightly in ideas generating; It doesn't rise significantly in idea organization, but rises obviously in text-production.The thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the explanation of the topic, and the significance of the present study. The second chapter reviews the previous EFL writing process studies and introduces the theoretical background of the study, which mainly involves Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Piaget views on thinking and thought, the theories of L2 writing and think-aloud protocol. This chapter also puts forward the new features of this study. The following chapter launches an analysis and discussion of the effects of L2 (English) thinking in EFL composing process, and quantitative and qualitative analyses are equally emphasized. The conclusion is drawn in Chapter five, both theoretical and pedagogical implication are also presented in this chapter.In conclusion, the results of the study show that cultivating of L2 thinking for senior high school students can improve their L2 writing performance and enhance their L2 proficiency, so we should foster the student writers'L2 thinking model, reinforce the inculcation on differences between Chinese thinking model and western thinking model, and the western culture should be instilled into those high school students as well. At the same time, much more attention should be paid to the students'individual differences, educators should be more tolerant with low-level L2 learners'reliance on their L1 if their L2 fails to them for an effective thinking. As for high-level learners, they should be encouraged to think in L2 as much as possible if the ultimate goal for L2 learning and teaching is to achieve native-like L2 proficiency.