Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Paper presented at the VIth International Conference on Research in Applied Linguistics (ICRAL2020), Bursa, Türkiye, 24 - 26 Ekim 2020
Writing
is possibly the most difficult skill that EFL writers engage in.
However, the developments in the cognitive psychology not only suggested
possible research directions to scholars for investigating the promising and
critical role of metacognition in writing achievement but also facilitated language
instructors to adopt a different perspective on writing instruction to tackle the
tough challenge of writing. The current study explored the constituents of
Turkish EFL students’ metacognitive knowledge about writing specific to person,
task, and strategy variables. Thirty-five students studying English at B2 level
at a preparatory school in Turkey participated in the study. Data for the study were collected through
retrospective interviews and analysed through a content analysis. Findings of
the content analysis showed that students’ awareness of person variable
involved person related factors affecting their writing performance negatively
and positively, their self- efficacy beliefs, their awareness of strengths and
weaknesses, their endeavours and goals to learn English writing. Participants’ task knowledge, on the other hand, comprised
task-related factors affecting writing performance, challenges in
completing a writing task, awareness of task requirements, and characteristics
of a good writing. In regard to their
strategy knowledge, participants addressed to objectives
of writing goals, planning ahead of writing, monitoring while writing, revising
and editing. Furthermore, to detect the probable differences among students
with different writing proficiencies in their metacognitive knowledge, students were
divided into three groups as high-performing (HP), average-performing (AP) and
low-performing (LP) writers. The
content analyses demonstrated significant differences among groups in
their person and strategy knowledge, but similarities in their task knowledge.
To be more specific, during the interview sessions, HP and AP writers provided more
in-depth information about themselves as writers, and about the strategies they
employed to achieve writing tasks successfully. However,
regardless of their writing achievement scores, participants in all groups
mentioned very similar aspects of task knowledge with similar frequency.
Depending on its findings, the present study highlights the importance of
writing instruction that focuses on the development of students’ metacognitive knowledge.