An Investigation into the Metacognitive Strategy Use in ESL Writing: A Case Study

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the metacognitive strategy use of 93 Chinese college students in the ESL writing. The researcher used a questionnaire to the most and least used metacognitive strategies of all subjects, and conducted semi-structure interviews with three successful writers and three unsuccessful writers to explore the differences in the metacognitive strategy use of the two groups. The finding shows that the strategy of selective attention was the most frequently used while self-evaluation the least. Successful writers were active in using functional planning, selective attention, self-monitoring but inactive in self-evaluation, while unsuccessful writers were negative in using all the above strategies.