The Correlation between Metacognitive Awareness and EFL students’ Writing Proficiency

Ph Vivian

February 2018

INTRODUCTION

In accordance with Nunan (2015, p.77), “[l]ike reading, writing is not only a tool for communication but also an instrument for intellectual growth and development”. However, in his recent published book, Harmer (2015, p.360) asserts that writing is also the skill that ‘teachers and learners seem most reluctant to focus on because it requires them to make special efforts’. Undoubtedly, writing is a ‘complex integrated activity’ (Leggette, Rutherford, & Dunsford, 2015, p.250) that serves as one of the prominent skills for students in second language learning. It is, therefore, understandable that most students find writing skills arduous and challenging.

It is obvious that to become effective writers in the field of second language learning, students not only need to know well WHAT they are writing, WHO they are writing to, but also do they need to realize WHY to write and HOW to write. In my particular teaching context, together with some genuine dilemmas like lacking of vocabulary and collocations (lexical sources) to properly express specific ideas, making grammatical mistakes, or translating word by word from the first language to the second one, it is perceived that in terms of process-oriented writing approach, students are dealing with a large number of difficulties in identifying what to write, the message’s audience, the objectives of the text, organizing ideas and linking the ideas in a systematic order that makes sense.

On the other hand, recent research in second language teaching and learning has witnessed an increasingly popular interest in learners’ metacognitive awareness and its role in the students’ language development in terms of receptive skills such as listening and reading (e.g. Baker & Brown, 1984; Vandergrift, 2002; Collins & Smith, 1982; Wenden, 1998, to name just a few). It is believed that metacognitive thinkers change both their comprehension and their strategies in language learning development. Also, metacognitive aware learners are asserted to be able to monitor and control the effectiveness of their learning. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000), therefore, recommend that “the teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas” (p.21). In the same vein, Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, and Norman (2010) believe metacognition to be one of the seven research-based principles for smart teaching. In the new perspective, however, few writers have been able to draw on any systematic quantitative research into the correlation between metacognition and students’ writing proficiency, especially in the context of Vietnam. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to review recent research into the effects metacognitive awareness has on students’ writing performance in the hope that to some extent, the problems would be properly and effectively tackled in the context of Vietnam. In addition, the paper also aims to pinpoint the great significance and the necessity of conducting both quantitative and qualitative research on the efficacy of metacognitive acknowledgement on Vietnamese students’ writing proficiency. Accordingly, this project provides an important opportunity to advance the understanding of metacognition on the subject of writing skills.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Writing as one of the prominent skills in second language learning

Although recent related research has revealed that writing has often been considered as an output of language acquisition, rather than a facilitating strand, it is one of the prominent skills which ‘must be taught and practised’ (Parel & Jain, 2008, p. 125) in second language learning as a means of language proficiency reflection. This is simply because in essence, it is ‘a kind of linguistic behaviour’ (Parel & Jain, op.cit.). As stated before in this paper, as writing is a ‘complex integrated activity’ (Leggette, Rutherford, & Dunsford, op.cit.), it requires great effort from both teachers and students in English teaching and learning. On account of the more traditional perspective of writing – learning-to-write (see Hyland, 2011), it is generally the last skill to be learnt. Accordingly, it provides a very good means of consolidating vocabulary, spelling, and sentence patterns, hence in a long run, writing becomes an important aspect of students’ expression at higher stages (Parel & Jain, op.cit.).

Metacognition and metacognitive knowledge

The term ‘metacognition’ was coined by Flavell in the late of 1970s. Metacognition can be briefly described as “cognition about cognition”, “thinking about thinking” (Flavell, 1976, p.232). In other words, it is the “refer[ence] to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes or any related to them” (Flavell, op.cit.). He has also preliminarily defined that metacognition is one’s acknowledgement of his own thinking process and the ability to manage the cognitive processes. In the same vein, Zimmerman (2002) maintains that ‘students’ deficiencies in learning were attributed to a lack of metacognitive awareness of personal limitations and an inability to compensate’. Tobias and Everson (2009) tell apart the difference between students with developed and underdeveloped metacognition. As regard the former, Tobias and Everson (op.cit.) claim that they ‘have an advantage during instruction because they can omit or skim the more familiar materials, and concentrate more fully on less familiar content they have yet to master’. Whereas, the latter ‘with underdeveloped metacognition, i.e., those with less accurate knowledge monitoring skills, often spend too much time reviewing familiar material at the expense of mastering the unfamiliar or new material and, as a consequence, often fall behind the instructional sequence’.

Metacognitive knowledge is further developed in Flavell (1979), he enhances that metacognitive knowledge involves three particularly striking and reciprocally interactive components: person knowledge, task knowledge, and strategic knowledge.

As regards person knowledge, Flavell (op.cit.) opines that it comprehends ‘everything that you could come to believe about the nature of yourself and other people as cognitive processors. It can be further subcategorized into beliefs about intraindividual differences, interindividual differences, and universals of cognition’. Wenden (op.cit) claims that person knowledge may consist of cognitive and affective factors such as age, language aptitude, motivation, self-efficacy beliefs about their general ability as learners, and beliefs about their ability to achieve specific learning goals. As per writing, the above indicated factors may refer to knowledge that the learners have obtained about themselves as writers, including their attitude towards, motivation in, and beliefs about their writing competence as well as their perceived capability in achieving specific writing objectives.

With respect to task knowledge, Flavel (op.cit.) describes that “[t]he metacognitive knowledge in this subcategory is an understanding of what such variations imply for how the cognitive enterprise should best be managed and how successful you are likely to be in achieving its goal”. To be more particular, Breen (1987) justifies that task knowledge is the students’ knowledge about the task purpose and how the task will meet the specific needs and goals. Wenden (op.cit) also adds that it is also about the nature of a certain task and the task’s demands such as the procedure or technique (or approach) as well as the particular knowledge and skills to fulfill the task. On the subject of writing, task knowledge may consist of the students’ knowledge about the nature of a specific writing task (i.e. to improve their writing skills), and the skills needed to complete the task such as using proper vocabulary, accurate grammar, logically organizing ideas with clarity.

Apropos of strategic knowledge, Flavell (op.cit.) asserts that “there is a great deal of knowledge that could be acquired concerning what strategies are likely to be effective in achieving what subgoals and goals in what sorts of cognitive undertakings”. In other words, strategic knowledge pertains to a specific effective strategy employed in order to accomplish the short-term objectives as well as long-term aims of the required tasks. Wenden (1998: p.519) maintains the stance by adding that metacognitive strategies “are general skills through which learners manage, direct, regulate, guide their learning, i.e. planning, monitoring and evaluating”. With reference to writing, strategic knowledge is about the learners’ knowledge of writing procedure such as pre-, while-, and post-writing during the process of writing.

In the light of Flavel’s (op.cit.) assertion, metacognition in writing is categorized according to two major elements: knowledge about cognition and the conscious regulation of writing activity. (e.g. Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Schraw, 1998; Sperling, Howard, Staley, & DuBois, 2004;; Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009; Serra & Metcalfe, 2009 – cited in Negretti, 2012). As mentioned in Harris, Graham, Brindle, and Sandmel (2009), knowledge about cognition includes three domains: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conditional knowledge. In agreement with Harris (et. al., op.cit.), Negretti (op.cit.) also states that declarative knowledge refers to recognition of what strategies and concepts are important in connection with a particular task, procedural knowledge pertains to recognition of ‘how to apply concepts and strategies’ (how to perform the task), and conditional knowledge appertains acknowledgement of when and why to apply specific knowledge and strategies.

Furthermore, the conscious regulation of writing activity is the sophisticated one for ‘skilled writers[,] as they seek to regulate above indicated factors as selection and use of strategies and skills, the writing environment, managing cognitive load, their affective responses to writing, and attentional control’ (Harris et. al., op.cit.). By the same token, Negretti (op.cit.) has indicated that ‘metacognition is often discussed together with self-regulation and self-regulated learning, indicating the complex set of abilities employed by people to control their behavior and their learning to reach desirable goals’.  Metacognitive acknowledgement in writing is, therefore, considered as ‘one of the facilitating factors’ that helps people ‘transfer skills, knowledge, and strategies across contexts and situations’ (Negretti, op.cit). Three conventional essential skills being mentioned in relation to regulation of cognition are planning, monitoring, and evaluation (Jacobs and Paris, 1987). As far as the researcher is concerned, a full discussion of self-regulation and self-regulated learning lies beyond the scope of the study.

Previous studies on metacognition and students’ writing development

Recent investigators have examined the effects of metacognition cognizance on students’ writing development. Research has consistently shown that metacognitive awareness has drawn on some positively extensive modification in student’s writing competence.

Yanyan (2010) conducts an investigation on the role of metacognitive knowledge in the English writing of Chinese EFL learners. The research data in this study were drawn from 120 freshmen who were asked to complete an English writing task and a self-designed questionnaire on metacognition knowledge. The students’ English level was indicated by English Proficiency Test, which contained listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar, reading comprehension, translation and writing and was graded by English teachers on the ground of the same criteria, at the end of the first semester. The research was carried out at regular English teaching hours with the assistance of the participant’s teachers. The metacognitive questionnaire was delivered after the English writing task was assigned in order to make sure it would not have any impacts on students’ writing process. The documents from the students’ English compositions on the topic “Part-time job’ were graded independently by two experienced English teachers, following the same grading criteria as in CET-4. Additionally, the inter-rater reliability was measured and it was over 0.9. After analyzing, the finding of the study is that while the students’ metacognitive knowledge foundation is not strong, all the components of metacognition knowledge are positively correlated with English writing performance, and successful engagement of metacognitive knowledge facilitates EFL learners’ writing proficiency. The finding of the study suggests that ‘good command of metacognitive knowledge can empower EFL learners in their English writing and cultivate their learning autonomy in English learning’.

While Yanyan (op.cit.) conducts an investigation on the role of metacognitive knowledge in the English writing of Chinese EFL learners, Ruan (2013) has taken a further step when examining the effects of metacognitive awareness on students’ writing development in the context of China. Under the threefold metacognition framework – person, task, and strategy variables, the data for this study were collected in a Chinese tertiary English Language Teaching context through small-group interviews with 51 English-majored students before taking an English Writing Course. The findings of the study show that ‘motivation, self-efficacy, and writing anxiety constitute students’ recognition of person variables’ which in turn influences their EFL writing ‘whereas their task awareness involves task purposes, task constraints, and cross-language task interference’. Strategies awareness of planning, text generating, and revising was found typical in experienced EFL student writers. The paper also proposes an interactional model of EFL student writers’ metacognitive realization about EFL students’ writing.

An international model of metacognitive awareness

about EFL writing (Adapted from Ruan, 2013)

As a result, the finding of the study agrees with Victori (1999) that ‘successful and unsuccessful EFL writers can be distinguished according to the adequacy of metacognitive awareness’.

Furthermore, in the study which set out to clarify the relationship between metacognition and ESL writing performance by collecting and analyzing both statistical and protocol data, Kasper (1997) reports that ‘there is a significant positive correlation between ESL students’ metacognitive growth, along and across the three components of metacognitive knowledge base, and their actual performance on a final writing assessment’ (Kasper, op.cit., p. 12). As a consequence, it is safe to state that ‘students who were successful on the final writing assessment obtained higher ratings on all three metacognitive variables’ (Kasper, op.cit., p. 12). To be more specific, Kasper (op.cit.) asserts that in terms of the three individual components of the metacognitive model for writing, at least for the 120 students taking part in the study, personal and task knowledge did not significantly changed as students progressed from the intermediate to the advance level. On the other hand, ‘their knowledge of effective writing strategies did increase significantly as students became more proficient in the English language’ (p.12). The study also replicated some previous studies, especially Brown (1980) when in his paper, he states that “metacognitive deficiencies are a function of inexperience” (Brown, op.cit., p.475).

Overall, these studies highlight the need to investigate the specific level of positive correlation between metacognitive awareness and writing competence towards some particular contexts, especially Vietnam. Also, these studies may shed lights on finding out discrete resolutions to tackling the aforementioned problems as well as developing EFL students’ writing ability.

Suggested metacognitive instructions

In light of the positive correlation between metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive awareness and EFL students’ writing competence in literature, there was an increasingly research concerning about the efficacy of applying metacognition in EFL writing instruction. One typical research of this kind is Xiao (2007). Xiao’s study is not just at the constraint of the effectiveness of adopting metacognition in students’ writing, he also propose three guidelines for EFL instructors to ‘make metacognitive teaching an integral part of writing instruction’ (Xiao, op.cit.) on the ground of the literature in the field. Also, the paper advocates both teaching with metacognition and teaching for metacognition. As per the first (with), he suggests that ‘EFL writing instructor should reflect upon his or her own teaching, and possess both metacognitive strategic knowledge and executive management strategies’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 23). This means ‘teachers know about and think about their own thinking concerning their teaching’ (p. 23). With reference to the second (for), ‘students can learn about what the strategies are, how to use the strategies, when and why to apply the strategies, and as the result, learn to regulate their cognitive activities’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 23). This means ‘teachers need to design their own instructions that will activate and develop their students’ metacognition’ (p. 23).

Xiao (op.cit) has also explained the reasons for proposing guidelines in relation to the issue. Firstly, ‘one general guideline may sometimes involve more than one activity and strategy’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 23). Secondly, ‘a creative teacher can design and develop more and new activities by following the guideline without being restricted by a limited set of activities’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 24). Accordingly, his three proposed guidelines are presented as followed:

- Guideline 1: Explicit instruction

In agreement with Paris and Winograd (1990), Blakey & Spence (1990), Xiao (op.cit.) recommend direct instruction as one effective classroom practice that will facilitate students to improve their metacognitive awareness. Paris and Winograd (op.cit, p.32-33) summarize five key features which teachers should put more focus on their instructions in the attempt of teaching students how to learn metacognitively:

1.      What the strategy is.

2.      Why the strategy should be learned.

3.      How to use the strategy.

4.      When and where the strategy is to be used.

5.      How to evaluate the use of the strategy.

The first four features refer primarily the three domains of metacognitive knowledge (declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge) and the last feature is about the regulation of one’s cognition (which is not the focus of this paper). The ultimate justification of utilizing direct instruction is to ‘provide explicit explanations on the notion and construct of metacognition’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 26). By doing this, the students ‘who used to be subconsciously aware of or most of the time unaware of their own cognitive activities will become metacognitively aware of their mental actions when they perform cognitive tasks’ (Xiao, op.cit, p.26).

- Guideline 2: Scaffolded instruction

Regarding scaffolded instruction, think sheet and cue card can be considered as facilitators and ‘adopted by teachers to guide students in order to gradually develop their own regulatory strategies’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 26). this external support is offered to the students until they are ready, in other words, until ‘their metacognitive strategies move toward an automatic state’ (Xiao, op.cit., p26 ). The study has also mentioned that ‘scaffolding is based on the concept of the zone of proximal development (see Vygotsky’s, 1978 for further understanding). ‘In other words, scaffolding involves providing support to students to bridge the gap between what they can do on their own and what they can do with guidance from more competent others including teachers and peers’ (Xiao, op.cit., p. 27).

In agreement with Resenshine and Meister (1992), Xiao restates six basic guidelines for the teacher planning to practice scaffolded instructions which are as followed:

Resenshine and Meister (1992) identified six basic guidelines for the teachers planning to practice scaffolded instruction: (1) present new cognitive strategies, (2) regulate any difficulties during guided practice, (3) provide varying contexts for students to practice, (4) provide feedback, (5) increase student responsibility, and (6) provide independent practice. Accordingly, at the beginning of teaching students how to perform a new task, the teacher needs to firstly model how to do it to provide the students with complete guidance. The students observe the teacher, an expert model, and do little independent thinking at this point. Afterwards, the teacher provides guided practice in different contexts for the students to practice the strategies modeled in the first step. At this stage, the students attempt to perform the task with the support supplied by the teacher. The support can include the teacher providing additional modeling or thinking aloud, offering hints and feedback, and giving partial solutions. As more guided practice is conducted, the teacher gradually transfers the responsibility to the students by decreasing the amount of support and increasing the students’ independent thinking. That is, the teacher’s role changes from model to facilitator, and the practice changes from teacher’s control to students’ self-regulation. Finally, when the strategies are internalized, the students are able to perform the task on their own.

- Guideline 3: A school year’s training

It is suggested that metacognition should be an integral part of the instructional objectives and accordingly, it should be taught in the English curriculum over the school year. Xiao (op.cit., p. 27) affirms that “the most effective way for EFL writing teachers to teacher their students to become metacognitive learners is probably to allow metacognitive instruction to permeate their curriculum”. However, it is the fact that in order to successfully adapt metacognitive instruction over the school year, both teachers and students should also be persistent through ‘not just a single class or unit’. In other words, the process of applying metacognitive instructions in order to develop students’ metacognitive awareness in terms of improving writing proficiency is time-consuming and the results may be diverse in different teaching contexts, with varying students’ levels and due to other various external factors.

CONCLUSION

All things considered, the present paper has presented the specific problems the researcher is facing in the individual teaching context. To be more precise, the researcher’s students are dealing with some dilemmas in indicating what to write, who to write to, why to write and how to be successful in English writing. Also, in the literature, there has been an increasingly popular concern about how and to what extent metacognition has positive effects on students’ writing proficiency. The present study has described some particular earlier studies revealing the positive correlation between metacognitive awareness and students’ writing development. It is due to the constraint of the paper, only three previous studies in the field have been mentioned. However, it is believed that this project has provided an important opportunity to advance the understanding of the relationship of metacognition and writing skill and metacognitive instruction may play a critical important role in ameliorating students’ writing competence. Therefore, applying metacognitive instructions in teaching writing is expected to address the indicated problems in the researcher’s personal teaching context in particular and in others’ teaching contexts where the same writing difficulties are encountered in general. Accordingly, future research should take metacognition, metacognitive awareness, and metacognitive strategies into consideration in terms of enhancing students’ writing ability, especially in the particular contexts of Vietnam. Hopefully, this attempt in turn gets researchers, experts, and teachers’ concern about and responsibility for proposing, assessing, and adjusting possible solutions in teaching English writing metacognitively in Vietnam’s educational settings.

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