The Influence Of Writing Engagement On The Effectiveness Of Writing-to-Learn

At present,the research on the interface between L2 writing and SLA has been carried out at home and abroad,but the research topics are relatively limited.The existing research on “writing-to-learn” mainly demonstrates the language learning potential of writing by verifying the three functions of written output,namely,noticing/trigger function,hypothesis testing and metalinguistic reflection.In addition,although existing studies have begun to explore the factors that influence the effectiveness of “writing-to-learn”,such as time-on-task,the type of task,individual differences,and so forth.However,enough attention has not been paid to the writing engagement that influences the final effectiveness of writing-to-learn.In view of this,this paper tries to verify whether writing engagement will affect the effectiveness of“writing-to-learn”.The specific questions are as follows: 1)Does writing engagement influence the effectiveness of “writing-to-learn”? If so,how? 2)In the process of promoting language learning by taking advantage of writing,what factors affect learners’ writing engagement?In this paper,the mixed qualitative and quantitative method was adopted to answer the above two questions.The first part of the study consisted of a 12-week experiment with the “pretest-intervention-immediate posttest-delayed posttest” design.In the first week,35 English major freshmen from a university in Jiangsu Province sat for the pretest.From the second to the eighth week,these participants finished free writing tasks twice a week.The immediate and the delayed posttest were carried out in the ninth and the twelfth week respectively.Then,the 35 participants received a questionnaire survey about writing engagement.The second part was a study of the 10 learners chosen from the above participants,5 of whom benefited greatly and the other 5 of whom benefited very little from the writing tasks of the experiment.At this stage,think-aloud protocols were employed in the process of writing to examine how writing engagement influenced the effectiveness of “writing-to-learn” and retrospective interviews were conducted after the delayed posttest to explore the factors influencing writing engagement.The data collected in the quantitative research were analyzed by means of Descriptive Statistics and One-way Repeated Measures ANOVA.The results showed that,after seven weeks of writing intervention,compared to the pretest,the accuracy and complexity of the 35 participants’ written performance in the immediate posttest and delayed posttest improved significantly,which indicated that writing can promote L2 development.In addition,an analysis of the data from the questionnaire survey,the think-aloud protocols and the retrospective interviews revealed that “writingto-learn” had different effects on learners with diverse writing engagement,suggesting that writing engagement exerts influence on the effectiveness of“writing-to-learn”.Besides,learners’ writing motivation,understanding of language use,willingness to communicate,identity awareness,interest in the task itself,and familiarity with the writing topic combine to affect their writing engagement.This study,on the one hand,further verified the language learning potential of L2 writing through quantitative research,thereby helping to induce changes in the traditional input-driven and oral communication-dominated foreign language teaching model.On the other hand,as the effect of writing on L2 development is directly affected by writing engagement,the various factors influencing writing engagement revealed by the qualitative research will help foreign language teachers apply flexible strategies and methods to different learners in the implementation of“writing-to-learn”,so as to enhance the degree of writing engagement and ensure the effectiveness of teaching.