A Correlational Study Of Second Language Writing Metacognition,Writing Anxiety And Writing Proficiency Among English Majors

As an important language productive skill, second language writing involves many factors, in which anxiety is considered to be one of the most significant factors that can’t be neglected.Writing anxiety refers to the anxiety associated with writing situations, such as the tendency to avoid writing, the fear of the writing to be read and evaluated by others, etc (Daly&Miller,1975a). It may distract learners’ attention to influence the quality of the completion of a writing task. Most research results show that writing anxiety has negative effect on students’ behaviors, writing process and writing proficiency (Dickson,1978; Fleming,1985; Wu Fang,2006etc). However, past researches have paid little attention to the effect of metacognition on writing anxiety.Based on Flavell’s theory of metacognition, Wu Hongyun’s theoretical framework of second language writing metacognition and Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis, this research has investigated such variables existing among English majors:second language writing metacognition, second language writing anxiety etc; and explored the relationships among second language writing metacognition, second language writing anxiety and writing proficiency.50English sophomores were selected as the subjects to have a writing test with a time limit. Then students also completed a Second Language Writing Metacognition Questionnaire and a Second Language Writing Anxiety Questionnaire. All the data were analyzed by SPSS17.0.Research results show that:1) the proficiency of English majors’ second language writing metacognition ability is at a medium level, with metacognitive evaluation of task being the highest. And metacognitive strategy has the greatest influence on writing proficiency;2) there is a significantly negative correlation between second language writing metacognition and second language writing anxiety, that is, the higher proficiency of students’ second language writing metacognition, the lower degree of their second language writing anxiety;3) metacognitive strategy has the greatest influence on second language writing anxiety among the three dimensions of second language writing metacognition: metacognitive evaluation of subject, metacognitive strategy and metacognitive evaluation of task;4) different degrees of writing anxiety have different effects on the writing proficiency; high anxiety has negative effects on students’ writing proficiency, while low-anxiety has certain positive effects on it.The results of the present study shed some light on future teaching and learning of English writing. Teachers of English can improve students’ writing proficiency by overcoming their second language writing anxieties through engaging second language writing metacognitive knowledge and good metacognitive strategies in their study.