tailieunhanh - Investigating the Role of Metacognitive Knowledge in English Writing

The concept of knowledge-crafting proposed here draws from the work of Walter Ong. About 30 years ago, Ong (1978) argued that a skilled author creates a fictional audience for the text to understand its meaning from the prospective readers’ point of view. In contrast to oral communication, the audience for written communication is not actual, but fictional, a product of the writer’s imagination that can play an active role in composition. As Ong explained, "the writer must anticipate all the different senses in which any statement can be interpreted and correspondingly clarify meaning and to cover it suitably.” To. | HKBU Papers in Applied Language Studies Vol. 14 2010 Investigating the Role of Metacognitive Knowledge in English Writing1 Zhang Yanyan Wuhan University Abstract Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about learning. Recent research suggests that metacognitive knowledge plays an important function in cognitive activities concerning language use and acquisition. This paper aims to investigate the role of metacognitive knowledge in the English writing of Chinese EFL learners. Thepresent study involves 120 non-English major freshmen in China as participants to complete an English writing task and a self-designed questionnaire on metacognitive knowledge. It is found that the learners metacognitive knowledge base is not strong metacognitive knowledge and its three components . person knowledge task knowledge and strategic knowledge are allpositively correlated with English writing performance and successful employment of metacognitive knowledge helps facilitate EFL learners writing proficiency. The results demonstrate that a good command of metacognitive knowledge can empower EFL learners in their English writing and cultivate their learning autonomy in English learning. 1. Introduction Recent decades has witnessed an increasing recognition of the importance of metacognitive knowledge in cognitive activities related to language use and acquisition . Baker Brown 1984 Devine 1993 Flavell 1979 Kasper 1997 Vandergrift 2002 Wenden 1998 Xu Tang 2007 . Many studies have been carried out to examine the function of metacognitive knowledge in ESL EFL learner s performance of receptive English skills such as reading and listening Zhang Investigating the Role of Metacognitive Knowledge in English Writing . Baker Brown 1984 Vandergrift 2002 Xu Tang 2007 Yang Zhang 2002 . It has been found that the learners beliefs and knowledge about learning play a critical role in those activities. However relatively little research has been conducted to investigate the role of .