An Empirical Study On The English Writing Strategies Used By Junior Middle School Students

In view of the importance of writing strategies, this current study aiming to confirm those writing strategies used by junior middle school students deserves a striking merit thorough investigation. Therefore, the following questions need addressing in this research.1. What are the changes of junior middle school students’ using writing strategies after the writing strategies training?2. To what extent can using writing strategies promote junior middle school students’ learner autonomy level in terms of English writing?3. To what extent can using writing strategies enhance junior middle school students’ writing achievements?The writing strategies involved in this thesis are divided into three stages: pre-writing stage, writing stage, and post-writing stage. On the foundation of constructivism, writing process theory, writing strategies training, this experiment lasting 12 weeks is conducted in Tangma Junior Middle School, and the participants from two classes in Grade 9 are named experimental class(EC) and control class(CC) separately. The final participants are 43 students in EC and 44 students in CC. Moreover, a questionnaire on writing strategies and a questionnaire on learner autonomy in terms of writing are devised. Furthermore, a pre-test and a post-test served as an another instrument for inspecting participants’ writing achievements after the writing strategies training are designed. Subsequently, an interview for gathering more convincing information is used only in EC. Lastly, the data are assessed and analyzed by the Statistical Package for the Social Science(SPSS) program(Version17).The major findings show that, after the writing strategies training, students can use more strategies to instruct their writing process, and using writing strategies can enhance students’ writing achievements to a great extent. Meanwhile, students’ autonomous learning ability in terms of writing has also been improved from a low level to a medium level. Finally, the limitations and implications of the research are presented. Some suggestions for the English writing teaching and learning and for the future study are also proposed.