Exploring Second Language Writing Steps and Strategies that EFL Students with Different Language Proficiency Levels Used in the Writing Process

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Date
2016-09
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The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
L2 students actively and strategically engaged in their writing tasks. During the writing process the students interacted with various available resources. These resources are regarded as their learning goals and tools of knowledge acquisition. In this qualitative analytical study, the goals were mainly focusing on: a) identifying the writing steps that strong, medium, and weak student went through, b) describing the strategies that these three groups of students used in all steps identified in item (a) above. The participants in this study were six students of intermediate level at an Omani University. Data collected in this study included observing through SnagIt and Stimulated-Recall. The findings show that there is a mismatch of writing process among these groups of students. In addition, there is a mismatch of writing strategies between these groups. The result shows that there is a great link between language proficiency, and writing steps and strategies. Good language learners know how to write step-by-step and use several writing strategies, which both can be evident in their writing process. The study also revealed that any lack in the writing steps and strategies can negatively influence the writing process of L2 participants. The findings corroborated the claim that L2 writing is a mediated activity that occurs during interactions between the language knowledge, writing steps, and strategies.
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EFL students, writing strategies, language proficiency, writing process
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