Summary of the Study

CHATER FIVE CONSLUSION

In this chapter, research findings of the current study are summarized first. Then pedagogical implications will be presented for EFL instructors in order to benefit students’ language learning. Furthermore, the limitations of the study will be pointed out and related suggestions for future research will also be provided.

Summary of the Study

The purpose of the present study is to examine Taiwanese English majors’

writing anxiety, their use of writing strategies, and the relationship between writing anxiety and writing strategy use. A total of 231 English majors, recruited from two universities, took part in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire consisting of the Chinese version of the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (Cheng, 2004a) and a modified Chinese version of the Second Language Writing Strategy Questionnaire (Petric & Czarl, 2003). The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlations, and ANOVA. The major findings of the study are summarized in the following.

Taiwanese English majors did not show a strong degree of writing anxiety.

Among the three dimensions of writing anxiety, the participants reported the highest level of cognitive anxiety, followed by somatic anxiety, and avoidance behavior.

Moreover, the three dimensions of their writing anxiety were found to significantly differ from each other. Cognitive anxiety was found to be significantly higher than somatic anxiety and avoidance behavior; somatic anxiety was shown to be significantly higher than avoidance behavior.

In general, these English majors’ use of writing strategies at the three phases of

writing was at a moderate level. Among the three categories of writing strategies, the participants used while-writing strategies the most, followed by pre-writing strategies, and revision strategies. The results suggest that these participants did not have a strong tendency to use any of these three writing strategies very often. However, the differences among the three categories of writing strategy use were found to reach a significant level. Specifically, the participants’ while-writing strategy use was found to be significantly higher than pre-writing and revision strategy use; pre-writing strategy use was significantly lower than while-writing strategy use but higher than revision strategy use.

The participants’ overall writing anxiety was not significantly correlated with their overall use of writing strategies. However, significant correlations were found within some subcategories of writing anxiety and writing strategy use. Somatic anxiety was positively correlated with while-writing strategy use. Avoidance behavior was negatively correlated with pre-writing strategy use, revision strategy use, and overall writing strategy use. Moreover, overall writing anxiety was negatively correlated with revision strategy use.

There was no significant difference in either overall writing anxiety or any of the three subcategories of writing anxiety among the sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

That is to say, the English majors’ grade levels did not have a significant effect on

their English writing anxiety. As regards the relationship between writing strategy use

and grade level, although there was no significant difference in overall writing

strategy use among the students at the three grades levels, the use frequency of

while-writing strategies was found to significantly differ among the sophomores,

juniors, and seniors, indicating that the English majors’ use of while-writing strategies

was related to the duration of their writing instruction.

Pedagogical Implications

Based on the results of the study, some suggestions for teaching are offered to EFL writing instructors in Taiwan.

The study shows that, among the three dimensions of writing anxiety, the participants experienced cognitive anxiety to the highest degree, suggesting that they had more worry or fear of others’ negative evaluation. To help learners reduce cognitive anxiety, teachers should offer proper assistance in the writing-learning process. In the first place, teachers should help students develop a positive attitude toward writing evaluation. Students should be reminded that evaluation by their teachers and peers can be facilitative for them inasmuch as they receive some feedback on their writing. Teachers should further encourage students to take a more open and objective stance on others’ evaluation, both positive and negative.

Specifically, teachers can tell students that others’ negative evaluation may help them see weaknesses of their writing and then make improvements on these areas. Secondly, teachers should offer students more opportunities to give each other feedback so that they can gradually get used to others’ evaluation. For example, teaches can conduct peer reviews as an in-class activity or a take-home assignment. In class, teachers can divide students into groups and ask them to give comments on each other’s writing.

To ensure that students can give objective and constructive comments on their

classmates’ writing, teachers should provide clear guidelines and models for peer

evaluation and allow students more time to give feedback. Thirdly, teachers can

regularly have individual conferences with students discussing their writing. While

speaking of the weaknesses of students’ writing, teachers should remain objective and

offer constructive suggestions to students at the same time. Gradually, students may

become less afraid of others’ negative evaluation and began seeking to learn

something from their comments.

Given the participants’ medium use of writing strategies and no significant correlation between their writing strategy use and their grade level, it can be argued that Taiwanese learners’ use of writing strategies needs to be improved with facilitation by teachers. In order to increase their use frequency of writing strategies, the following procedures are suggested to EFL teachers. To start with, during writing classes, teachers can introduce students a variety of effective writing strategies and demonstrate to them how to use these strategies appropriately in the writing process.

As contended by Goldstein and Carr (1996), being equipped with knowledge of writing strategy use is the key to high writing proficiency and better writing performance. Accordingly, in class, teachers should provide students with as adequate knowledge of writing strategy use as possible. After equipping students with a good knowledge of writing strategies, teachers can provide them with a variety of choices in strategy use, guiding them to select writing strategies appropriate to the tasks at hand. Moreover, since writing is one demanding productive skill, knowing what strategies are available and how to use them may not be enough for students to write well. In light of this, teachers are advised to provide students with sufficient opportunities to “practice” and “use” writing strategies during the writing process so as to have hands-on experiences of making good use of them.

In addition to incorporating writing strategy instruction into regular writing

classes, holding workshops may be a good way to help Taiwanese learners see the

significance of writing strategy use and provide them with sufficient opportunities to

use writing strategies. College teachers can regularly hold a variety of English writing

workshops to English learners with different backgrounds (e.g. various levels of

English writing proficiency, ages, or writing experiences). These workshops can equip

learners with knowledge of writing strategies and offer them additional opportunities

to practice writing strategies.

Finally, the study found some subcategories of writing anxiety and writing

strategy use to significantly correlate with each other. Specifically, among the three

dimensions of writing anxiety, avoidance behavior was the one shown to significantly

correlate with the three categories of writing strategies. Moreover, all of the

significant correlations between avoidance behavior and the three types of writing

strategies were negative, indicating that the more avoidance behavior the participants

exhibited, the fewer writing strategies they would use. Based on these findings, which

suggest a negative influence avoidance behavior may have on writing strategy use, it

can be argued that reducing learners’ avoidance behavior may be facilitative in

enabling them to use more strategies in the writing process. In order to accomplish

this, firstly teachers are advised to encourage students to write more often in English

outside the classroom. For instance, teachers can make explicit to them the advantages

of writing in English in their daily lives—for example, increasing opportunities of

practice and getting immersed within an English environment. After sensitizing

students to the importance of writing in English outside the classroom, teachers can

encourage them to write their diaries, journals, notes, letters, and on-line chatting in

English. To encourage them to engage in these extracurricular writing activities,

teachers can give them such incentives as oral praises or extra credits. Furthermore,

teachers can design activities to motivate students to engage in communicative

English writing, letter exchanges with classmates being one example. By virtue of its

interactive nature and real-life context, exchanging letters is a type of learning activity

which may enhance students’ motivation to write in English.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Due to the limitations of this study, some important issues regarding Taiwanese EFL learners’ writing anxiety and strategy use are not addressed in the present study.

To begin with, the study was conducted only with undergraduate English majors.

This particular sample of subjects cast doubt on the generalizability (i.e., external validity) of the research findings to other populations of different educational backgrounds. With more writing experiences and instruction, English majors’ writing anxiety and writing strategy use are likely to be quite different from those of non-English majors. Therefore, it is suggested that future studies employ participants of various educational backgrounds to gain more comprehensive insights into Taiwanese learners’ writing anxiety and writing strategy use.

Secondly, the study used questionnaires as the main data-collection instrument.

Although questionnaires are time-saving and easy to administer, they may not be able to provide sufficient insights into the relationship between writing anxiety and writing strategy use. Moreover, as the two inventories used in the study were in self-report formats, the participants’ responses were mainly based on subjective feelings and might not objectively reflect the true extent of writing anxiety and writing strategy use.

In view of this potential drawback, other data-collection measures are suggested to be

included in future studies. For example, interviews could be used to elicit more

concrete examples about how students’ writing anxiety influences their use of writing

strategies. Besides, teachers could use classroom observation to understand how

anxious students write in class. Think-aloud protocols might also help to obtain

information about students’ feeling of anxiety and use of writing strategies while they

are writing in English. In addition, teachers could examine changes in writing anxiety

or writing strategy use through analyzing students’ learning journals. More data

collection procedures are suggested to be used in futures studies to elicit more

complete information about learners’ writing anxiety and writing strategy use.

Lastly, the study is limited by examining strategy use only within one particular writing context. That is, it investigated mainly what strategies the participants employed when writing their term papers. The limitation brought from the singular context could be improved in the future studies by providing a variety of contexts. For example, students’ perceived writing strategy use could be investigated in the contexts of writing learning journals, test papers, research papers, or even thesis/dissertation.

In order to get a full picture of learners’ repertoire of writing strategies, future studies

are suggested to scrutinize their use of strategies in various writing contexts.