A Study On The Impacts Of Task Types On L2 Writers’ Metacognitive Strategies And Writing Performance

Task type,a significant variable in writing,has received increasing attention across L2 writing research as a factor influencing the writing process and performance.Metacognitive strategies also shed light on researchers’ interpretation of L2 writing process.However,few studies have investigated the impacts of task type on both the writing process and written products.Based on Hayes’ s(2012)writing model,the present study is designed to look into the impacts of independent writing task and integrated writing task(reading-to-write task)on L2 writers’ use of metacognitive strategies and writing performance.To the end,the study employed writing tests,think-aloud,retrospective questionnaires and interviews as instruments to collect data.60 English major sophomores from two classes in a university in Northeast China were selected as participants in the study,with no significant difference between them on the level of English writing proficiency.The two classes were chosen separately as the experimental group of completing the reading-to-write task and the control group of finishing the independent writing task,writing argumentative essays on the same topic,and then completing the questionnaire.Four focus students in each group were selected to conduct think-aloud and interview.Writing performance in the present study was measured by complexity,accuracy and fluency,and the indices used to measure these three features were taken from Plakans et al.’s(2016)study.The major findings are summarized as follows: firstly,task type had significant impacts on L2 writers’ use of planning strategy and monitoring strategy,with no pronounced effects on the use of evaluation strategy.The use of four planning strategies and three monitoring strategies were shown significantly higher in the independent writing task,and the use of evaluation strategy was slightly higher in the independent writing task.Secondly,task type significantly affected L2 writers’ fluency,with no such pronounced impacts found on complexity and accuracy.Specifically,fluency was significantly higher in the reading-to-write task,and both complexity and accuracy were reported to be slightly higher in the reading-to-write task.Besides,accuracy was impacted by text length to some extent.The above findings indicated that each task had its advantage as the independent writing task was conducive to the enhancement of the use of metacognitive strategy for L2 writers,while the reading-to-write task was beneficial to the progress of their writing performance.The study not only enriches findings of research on the integrated writing task,contributing to a deeper understanding of the impacts of task type on L2 writers’ metacognitive strategies and writing performance,but also sheds light on the improvement of L2 writers’ use of metacognitive strategies and teachers’ L2 writing instruction as well.