TEACHING WRITING THROUGH META-COGNITIVE STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

Abstract

In the context of secondary school language classes, the development of writing in a foreign language is a particular challenge for many students at all levels. Taking into account the fact that writing skills require study and conscious development, it was assumed to offer cognitive approach to teaching writing as a solution to the mentioned problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of meta-cognitive writing strategy instruction on senior school students’ writing performance. To achieve this goal, researchers conducted a 4-month intervention, which was aimed at teaching four main types of meta-cognitive writing strategies (planning, organizing, editing, evaluation). Moreover, the author described a 4-stage strategy instruction model, which was applied in the intervention process. Possible techniques and activities were suggested to develop each of the model stages. A stimulated interview was used as a tool for data collection, which was then thematically analyzed. An essay written by participants after intervention process were used as stimuli for students to report on the employed writing strategies. The results of the qualitative data analysis revealed the impact of the strategy use on all aspects of writing as well as on students’ satisfaction and confidence. The conclusions made on the current study, which demonstrated that strategy instruction works for improving two main learning domains (academical, reflected in writing performance and psychological contributing to students’ satisfaction and confidence) may have practical value in developing secondary school students’ writing skills. Keywords: meta-cognitive writing strategies, writing performance, strategy instruction, planning strategies, organizing strategies, editing strategies, evaluating strategies.