English Writing Strategies Used By Chinese High School Students

In recent years, researchers in the field of second language acquisition have shiftedtheir attention from how to teaching to how to learning, because it is believed that,compared to teachers’ role, students are more important in learning. Thus, learningstrategies have become a buzzard. Similarly, in order to improve students’ writing,researchers on second language writing also began to explore students’ writing strategiesduring their writing processes. However, most studies in this area have been carried outin English-speaking countries or in countries where English is used as the first language.Few researches have been conducted in the Chinese context regarding high schoolstudents’ use of writing strategies. The present study aims to obtain an understanding ofwriting strategies used by high school student in a Chinese school.In this study, the author conducts a study to investigate Chinese high schoolstudents’ writing strategy use. The author employed two instruments to conduct thequantitative study: a writing strategy questionnaire and a composition. The subjects inthe study were150high school students in Zixi NO.1Middle School. The study tried toexplore the general tendency of high school students’ writing strategy use, and therelationship between writing strategy use and writing proficiency. It also attempted toexamine the differences in writing strategy use between high proficiency students andlow proficiency students. Finally, this study looked at the effect of gender on students’use of writing strategies. The data in the study were analyzed by SPSS13.0anddescriptive statistics, correlation analysis, ANOVA analysis were used to answer thequestions respectively.Several findings are revealed from this study. First, the students did use a variety ofwriting strategies, but they used these strategies only at a medium level. All thestrategies are positively correlated with writing proficiency except translating strategy.The students with different writing proficiency differed in frequency of writing strategyuse. They differed in the frequency and choice of writing strategy use. High proficiencystudents reported more writing strategy use than low proficiency students. Male andfemale students were different in the pattern of writing strategy use: When comparedwith male student writers, female students had higher motivation and were moreunsatisfied with their writing performance and employed writing strategies more frequently.According to the findings of the study, several implications can be suggested forEnglish teaching and learning. First of all, teachers should let students know theimportance of writing strategy use and cultivate students’ potential to use writingstrategies during the writing process. They should also encourage students to use a widerange of strategies in their teaching of writing. Finally, students should widen their useof writing strategies, so as to learn how to use different writing strategies for differenttasks.