Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Research on language learning strategies showed its debut in the mid of 1970s and itgenerally became a fresh direction and subject in terms of language learning andeducation worldwide. Canadian expert Rubin published her essay “ What GoodLanguage Learners Can Teach Us，，on TESOL Quarterly in 1975. In the same year,Stem and a research group headed by Naiman issued their researches on goodlanguage learners on Canadian Modem Language Review and TESL Talk respectively.Cohen (2000) claimed from then on，learning strategies become a heated researchtopic both in applied linguistics and psychology. Having been attached greatimportance in the area of second language acquisition，research on language learningstrategies turns out to be fruitful.Research touches upon many perspectives of language acquisition, revealinghow learners would apply learning strategies and the relationship between the choiceof learning strategies and language performance. Studies have been conductedlongitudinally and cross-sectionally, eliciting large quantity of usefiil information thatwould felicitate efforts in language learning and language teaching. With theoreticalbackground persistently enhanced, teaching methods mushroomed in the last 30 years,giving birth to audio-lingual in 1960s，then followed by various types of methods suchas cognitive method，communicative method, silent method and so on. It is necessaryto notice that language-learning efficiency has not been obviously improved eventhough the methods mushroomed in the past three decades.
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1.2 Necessity for Conducting the Research
So there is still room to be found to conduct further research on writing strategies,verifying the relationship between language performance and the use of writingstrategies.Firstly，researches on the relationship between employment of strategies andlanguage performance need to be furthered. Even though researches on the writingstrategies increased these years, a few is concerned with the relationship betweenwriting and language proficiency. Zhen (2011) reviewed the studies on learningstrategies from 13 key academic journals of foreign language from 2000-2009 andfinds there is only 9 papers about the writing strategies, ranking at the third placeamong the four basic language skills. Therefore it is necessary to conduct researches on the relationship between use of strategies and language performance.Secondly, the relationship between use of writing strategies and languageproficiency needs to be validated. Even among the limited researches, different resultsare drawn. Some researches indicate that writing strategies are related to languageproficiency while some researches display that there is no significant relationshipbetween them, for instance, Wu(2005) did a research on the relationship betweenwriting strategies and language proficiency and found writing strategies do not predictthe language proficiency. However, Deng (2006) did a similar study, claiming thatlanguage proficiency is positively related. Therefore，more researches should beconducted to provide empirical support for determining the relationship.
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Chapter Two Theoretical Background and Relevant Studies
2.1 Definition and Classification of Key Terms
The word “strategies，，is derived from the old Greek word "strategia" which initiallymeans the art of war. When coming to language learning strategies, it can refer to theadjustment in the process of learning.With research on language learning strategies prospering, effort to establish thetheoretical system of language learning strategies especially the definition andclassification of language learning strategies seems urgent and necessary. So scholarsare devoted to defining language learning strategies from several angles such as thegoal of using learning strategies, theory of information processing and relationshipbetween strategies and learning process. Till now，the most renowned definitions oflearning strategies are proposed by Oxford and O'Malley&Chamot which are listed asfollows:The special thinking or behavior consciously employed by a learner to improvethe acquisition, comprehension, memorizing new information (O'Malley&Chamot1990).Learning strategies are actions taken by the learner to make learning easier. faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable tonew situation (Oxford, 1989).
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2.2 Relevant Studies on Writing Strategies
Research on writing strategies has been attached great importance home and abroad.This section will present some studies which will bring enlightenment to thedevelopment of writing strategies. Researches on writing strategies have attracted experts attention from 1980s and canbe grouped into three categories: 1) Overall status of the writing strategies by learners;2)The difference in the use of writing strategies between successful learners andless-successful learners; 3) The relationship between writing strategies and writingperformance.Several studies have been executed to look into the various strategies possiblyexploited in writing. Amdt(1987) took 6 Chinese ESL learners as subjects. Heconducted a research on the writing activities both in native language and secondlanguage and the results display that during the writing process, several tactics havebeen employed of which are planning, practicing, repetition, rereading, asking andreviewing. By means of interview and think-aloud method, Victori(1995) confirmedseven writing strategies including planning, monitoring, assessing, referring,repetition, extraction and native writing strategies. Leki(1995) carried out a qualitativestudy of five EFL students in their first term at university and reached ten writingstrategies used by subjects. He found that to compose given topics，strategies areemployed in clusters or individually.
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Chapter Three Methodology........... 22
3.1 Subjects .......22
3.2 Instruments....... 22
3.2.1 The Writing Strategies Questionnaire....... 23
3.2.2 The English Proficiency Test....... 25
3.3 Pilot Study....... 26
3.4 Administration of Questionnaire.......26
3.5 Grouping....... 27
3.6 Data Collection of Writing Strategies Questionnaire....... 27
3.7 Analysis of the Data Collected .......27
Chapter Four Results and Discussion....... 29
4.1 Results .......29
4.2 Discussion....... 43
Chapter Five Conclusion ....... 54
5.1 Major Findings of the Research .......54
5.2 Implications ....... 56
5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research....... 58
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
4.1 Results
Firstly, this part displays the status of using writing strategies by students from whichthe students’ preference and frequency of writing strategies are clearly presented sodescriptive method is used to provide the basic information of writing strategiesemployed by students.The second part is to clarify whether there is relationship between the preferenceof writing strategies and language proficiency. In order to find the concreterelationship between writing strategies and language proficiency, the method ofPearson analysis is used. The third part is concerned with the difference in usingwriting strategies between successful learners and less-successful learners, whichIndependent t-test can statistically present. According to the science of statistics, the value of mean (M) demonstrates how oftena corresponding strategy is used and the value of standard deviation (SD) displayshow varied the choices of strategies uses are, thus presenting the fundamentalinformation of strategies use and facilitating the related experiment procedures.
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Conclusion
The thesis is theoretically based on O'Malley's framework of learning strategies.Questionnaire used in this thesis is designed and revised by referring to the Jacob'sInventory for Assessing Composition and Wang's questionnaire and it is used explorethe writing strategies used by students. The major findings are as follows:Firstly, the whole picture of writing strategies employment is obtained by meansof descriptive. In terms of the four categories of writing strategies employment,structure strategies, content strategies and content strategies reached "sometimesused，，level. Syntactic strategies only reach the level of "generally not used" Amongthe three "sometimes used" writing strategies，structure strategies enjoy the highestfrequency. Content strategies are in the second place of employment. Vocabularystrategies are the least one to be employed except for syntactic strategies. It is clearstudents are not aware of using syntactic strategies. In other words, students havedifficulty in using syntactic strategies for it is much harder than the other writingstrategies and requires more sophisticated English proficiency.
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Reference (omitted)