An Investigation on Writing Strategy Use of English Major英语论文.doc

An Investigation on Writing Strategy Use of English Major Abstract: This pape is to use detect the English writing strategies used by the English major in university. Whether they will use a writing strategy or what strategies they would usebeforing writing, while writing and after writing.Our study also aim at the difference of using the writing strategies between girls ang boys,high-level learners and the low-level learners.Key words: writing strategy, English major, significant differenceI. IntroductionAs we all know that different people have different ways to learn Engslih. It means that we use different learning strategies during learning. The study of learning strategies in second language acquisition started around the 1970s ( for example, Rubin 1975; Wong Fillmore 1976 and 1979; Stern 1975). It aimed at identifying the range of strategies. Much of the study has clearly been influenced by developments in cognitive psychology. The emergence of learning strategies traced back to answering the question: Why are some people more effective at learning than others? Effective learning is not merely a matter of a high IQ. What seems to be more important is the learners ability to respond to the particular learning situation and to manage their learning in an appropriate manner. More recent studies have tended to focus on the strategies when learners perform particular tasks. As a English major, the students must use more stategies in learning English. So we want to detect the situation of using writing strategies among them.The present study focus on the situation of using writing stategies in pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing and the writer expect to find out these following questions:1) Whats the difference between boys and girls in using the writing strategies?2) Whas the difference between effective learners and ineffective learner in using the writing stategies?II. Literature Review2.1.Definitions of learning strategiesIt is not easy to tie down the definition of learning strategies partly because the concept of “strategy” itself is somewhat fuzzy and partly because terms such as skills, strategies, processes, and approaches are used differently by different people. Researchers have not gained a common understanding of learning strategies. Perspectives are so different that Ellis (1994) states that “definitions of learning strategies have tended to be ad hoc and atheoretical ” (p. 533).Some definitions of learning strategies produced by different researchers are as follows:Tarone (1980): A language learning strategy is an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language. The motivation of the use of this strategy is the desire to learn. Stern (1983): In our view strategy is best reserved for general tendencies or overall characteristics of the approach employed by the language learner, leaving techniques as the term to refer to particular forms of observable learning behaviour.Chomot(1987): Learning strategies are techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning, recall of both linguistic and content area information.Rubin (1987): Learning strategies are strategies which contribute to the development of the language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly.Oxford (1989): Language learning strategies are behaviours or actions which learners use to make language learning more successful, self-directed and enjoyable.Cohen (1998) : Learning strategies are learning processes which are consciously selected by the learner. The words “consciously select” are important because they demonstrate the special character of strategy.Wenden(1998): Learning strategies are mental steps or operations that learners use to learn a new language and to regulate their efforts to do so.( as cited in Ellis, 1994, p. 531)2.2. Classification of learning strategiesEllis notes that learning strategies differ in a number of ways, reflecting the type of learners under study, the setting and the particular interests of the researchers. Therefore, different researchers form different frameworks to classify learning strategies.Among all the classifications,Oxfords Strategy Inventory for Language Learning ( SILL) is perhaps the most comprehensive classification of learning strategies to date. Oxford divided the learning strategies into direct and indirect strategies. The former consist of strategies that directly involve the target language in the sense that they require mental processing of the language, while the latter provide indirect support for language learning through focusing, planning, evaluating, seeking opportunities, controlling anxiety, increasing cooperation and empathy and other means. Direct strategies are subdivided into memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies. Indirect strategies include metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies.III.Methodology3.1 SubjectsThe participants of this study were university students whose major were Englsih.There were 15 people participated the research.Tale 1: The subjectsPass TEM-4Not pass TEM-4TotalMale167Female538Total69153.2 Instrument and ProcedureThis srvey is about the writing strategies. There are 23 items in the questionnaire which uses a 5-point scale ( 1=never to 5=always ).All the questions were writen in Chinese.The questionnaire was distributed among 15 English major students. They were assured that they would answer the question according to their real situation. Therefore the data colected were reliable. Having collected the completed questionnaire forms, the writer have analyzed them carefully.IV. Results and Discussion4.1 ResultsTable 2:English majorPre-writing2.571While-wrinng3.207Post-writing2.563Table 2 indicates the frequency of strategies used by English majors in 3 stages. According to the table, the frequency of use is: pre-writing strategies, with a means of 2.571; while-writing strategies, with a means of 3.207; psost writing strategies,with a means of 2.563. As we can see, the frequency of using writing strategies is not high.The students use writing strategies more frequently while writing.Table 3:MaleFemalePre-writing2.4222.749While-writing3.1533.285Post-writing2.4172.709Table 3 shows that females have higher means on writing strategy use in each stage than males.Table 4:Pass TEM4Not pass TEM4Pre-writing2.354 2.764While-writing3.1103.296Post-writing2.6112.519Table 4 shows that the means of writing strategies use of TEM4-passed students is higher than those who didnt pass TEM4 in each stage of writing.4.2 Dicussion4.21 Strategy use and genderAs table 3 shows, femals have higher means on writing strategy use in each stage than males.According to Oxford research, he found that strategy use is significantly related with genders. Females are better at strategy use than males and employ strategies more frequently.4.22 Stragegy use and different level learnersAs the table 4 shows, the means of writing strategies use of TEM4-passed students is higher than those who didnt pass TEM4 ,in each stage of writing. The successful learners seem more likely to use the strategies while writing than the less successful learners. The effective learners seem have more sense of using the strategies.5.ConclusionsThe author noted that writing strategies are important to writers. The author attempted to find out the general situations of writing strategies used by English majors. The results of the study can be concluded as follows: 1.Studens dont use wrtiting strategies very often during writing.2. Females have higher means on writing strategy use than males.3. Effective learners have higher means on writing strategy use than ineffective learners.Bibliography:1潘淑敏 英语学习策略-成功之路. 北京:高等教育出版社,20072俞东明 李华东 写作教程 上海外语教育出版社,20073 Ellis, R. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Shanghai: 上海外语教育出版社. (1999)4 Oxford, R. & D. Crookall. (1989). Research on language learning strategies: methods, findings and instructional issues. The Modern Language Journal, 73(iv), 404419.