Understanding Good Language Learners’ Writing Strategy Use in the Chinese EFL Context: A Sociocultural Perspective

Abstract

Strategy studies have been a well-established field in second language writing research and this article investigates English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing strategy use from a sociocultural perspective. Unlike the traditional focus on internal cognitive mechanisms in writing strategy studies, this sociocultural approach highlights the dialectic relationship between cognition and the sociocultural context and the importance of mediating resources in strategy use. Six proficient English majors from a Chinese university participated in the study, and data about their writing experience were collected through interviews. The findings showed that the participants used four types of writing strategies: artifact-mediated, rule-mediated, community-mediated, and role-mediated strategies. Other features of their strategy use include the diversity of mediating resources, idiosyncratic use of these resources, and the common goal to enhance their language knowledge and writing ability. Drawing on these findings, it is suggested that teachers can reconfigure the sociocultural context of writing activities to help students enhance their strategy use and possible ways include artifact manipulation and community construction.

The Effectiveness of Application of Writing Strategies in Writing Instruction

“…I hold a strong agreement with Lei (2012) that English literary works can be used as a major artifact to develop students' writing strategy use. However, in the class of College English course, students who are unlike English majors rarely read any English literary works other than materials in textbooks, which means instructors need to employ textbooks comprehensively to not only enhance reading ability but also importantly raise their writing competence.…”

“…According to the results of investigation from Lei (2012), four types of artifacts---English literacy works, the Internet, the L1 (Chinese) language and the L2 (English) language---are mainly used by EFL learners to mediate into their writing. Both the Internet-mediated and literary work-mediated strategies are classified into the tool-mediated strategies while L1 and L2 language are the most prominent subcategories of sign-mediated strategies.…”

“…In terms of writing research, some experts (e.g., Prior, 2001Prior, , 2006Russell, 1995Russell, , 1997Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996) pay more attentions on the application of mediation analysis and Activity Theory. According to Activity Theory, Lei (2008Lei ( , 2012 argued that writing strategies are "mediated actions which are consciously taken to facilitate writer's practices in communities" (Lei, 2008, p.220) and identified four types of writing strategies by drawing on the Activity Theory. They are artifact-mediated, rule-mediated, role-mediated and community-mediated strategies.…”

“…The Communication Theory is reflected in all these four approaches of ESL writing instruction. Combining classification of writing strategies of Mu (2005) with exploration of writing strategies within the Activity Theory framework From Lei's (2008Lei's ( , 2012 investigation, I will discuss how writing strategies make implication of pedagogy in College English Course, which is a compulsory course for freshmen and sophomore except for English majors. Strategy use, in my opinion, should not be emphasized on either traditional-cognitive strategies or sociocultural strategies.…”

“…Contrastive rhetoric theory, Cognitive Development theory, Communication theory and artifact-mediated, rule-mediated strategies are attributed into Mu and Lei's classification of writing strategies respectively. Society-mediated strategy is one of subcategories of Community-mediated strategies according to Lei (2008Lei ( , 2012. Nevertheless, Mu (2006) identified social factors into a category of writing strategies: social Constructionist Theory.…”