STATEMENT OF DECLARATION
I hereby certify that this thesis is completely my own work. I am fully aware that I have quoted and paraphrased some statements and ideas from other sources, and they are properly acknowledged in the text.
Bandung, August 2009
Writing Processes and Meta-cognitive Strategies
of Four Indonesian Tertiary Level EFL
Students
(A Think Aloud Protocol Based Study)
By Fatma Helmiyantriyani
Approved by
________________________________
Emi Emilia, M.Ed., Ph.D. (Main Supervisor)ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The writing of this thesis is not an easy task. It needs much effort and time, in order to get a polished thesis. In this occasion, I would like to express my immense gratitude to all those persons who have given their valuable support and assistance, so that I can complete this thesis. In particular, I am profoundly indebted to my supervisors, Emi Emilia, M.Ed., Ph.D., as my main supervisor, and DR. Didi Suherdi, M.A., as my co-supervisor, for their generously providing time and knowledge in assisting me to complete this thesis. Without them, I can hardly imagine the completion of this research project.
My special thanks are also due to the participants of this study, who have given their time and best effort in dealing with the PTESOL test as well as the writing tasks. My best friend, Lika Widiantoro, who gave me constant support and suggestions during the completion of this thesis, also deserves a special mention.
I also thank many lecturers and friends in the English Education Program of School of Postgraduate Studies, Indonesia University of Education, for their share and support as well as feedback to my study.
LETTER OF CONTENTS
1.3. Significance of the Study 8
1.4. Scope of the Study 9
1.5. Definitions of the Terms 10
1.6. Thesis Organization 11
Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The Values of Writing 13
2.2. The Processes and Strategies of Writing 15
2.2.1. The Pre-writing Stage 21
2.2.2. The Writing/drafting Stage 26
2.2.3. The Post-writing Stage 29 2.3. The Use of Think-aloud Protocols in Writing Process and Language
Learning Strategy Studies 34
2.4. Concluding Remarks 39
Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research Questions 41
3.2. Research Design 41
3.3. Participants of the Study 43
3.4. Research Instruments 45
3.4.1. Writing prompt 45
3.4.2. Post-writing questionnaire 46
3.5. Data Collection Place, Time, and Procedure 47
3.5.1. Think-aloud protocols 48
3.5.2. Post-writing questionnaire 50
3.6. Data Analysis Procedures 51
3.6.1. The Scoring of the Writing Task 51
3.6.2. Think-aloud protocols 60
3.6.3. Post-writing questionnaire 62
Chapter IV: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSES
4.1. Findings and Discussions 64
4.1.1. Data from the Think-aloud Protocols 64
4.1.1.1. Processes of Writing 65
4.1.1.2. Meta-cognitive Strategies 74 4.1.2. Data from the Post-writing Questionnaire 101
4.1.2.1. Strategies Used in the Pre-writing Stage 101
4.1.2.2. Strategies Used in the Writing/drafting Stage 104
4.1.2.3. Strategies Used in the Post-writing Stage 108
4.2. Concluding Remarks 109
Chapter V: CONCLUSIONS 5.1. Conclusions of the Study 110
5.2. Limitations of the Study 113
5.3. Recommendations 114
REFERENCES 115
APPENDICES 128
Appendix I : Tables and Figures Appendix II : Outlines of the Essays Appendix III : The Participants’ Essays
Appendix IV : Example of the Think-aloud Protocols Transcription Appendix V : Example of the Timeline Charts/Coding Sheets of the
Transcribed Think-aloud Protocols
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This thesis is a report of a think-aloud protocol-based study of foreign language writing processes and strategies. The study was based primarily upon the think aloud protocols of four Indonesian tertiary level EFL students taken while they were writing an English essay. This first chapter of the thesis presents the background of the study, specifies the problems of the study, and describes its significance. The chapter concludes by noting the scope of the study, defining some special terms used, and listing the organizations of the thesis.
1.1. Research Background
Nowadays, English has become one of foreign languages that are important to be acquired in Indonesia, especially if it is viewed from the effect of globalization. As the language of knowledge and information, English has become an important language for international communication in the globalization era. Therefore, it is essential that our next generations be able to communicate fluently in English, both in oral and written modes. Through English mastery, they can compete with people from different parts of the world.
emphasized in the national curriculum. Furthermore, it is also stated that university students are targeted to acquire English writing in various genres in both informational and epistemic levels. In informational level, students are expected to be able to access
knowledge with their language proficiency; meanwhile, the epistemic level requires
students to be able to express their knowledge into the target language (Wells, 1987 cited
in Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2003). In the same vein, Emi Emilia (1998: 47)
in one of her articles, entitled “Pendekatan Process Dalam Pengajaran Menulis (Process Approach in the Teaching of Writing)”, also argues that writing plays an important role in accelerating learning processes, building character developments, and establishing empowerments of the writers. The statements above indicate that mastering English writing proficiency has become essential for Indonesian tertiary students to help them become more successful in their study both nationally and internationally.
from one another. Therefore, they need to apply some efforts (strategies) in order to recognize and manage the differences (Leki, 1991) found in the process of writing an English essay. The challenge in writing an English essay above was also found in the participants’ process of writing in this study. They seemed to have problems in finding the right words that are relevant to their intended meanings as well as organizing their ideas into a coherent, fluent, and extended essay. In order to cope with those problems, they applied some strategies.
and strategies of first language writing studies (e.g. Flower & Hayes, 1981; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1987) were also employed as the basic theories. This decision was taken since both of them were relevant to the topic of this study, i.e. cognitive processes and strategies in writing.
However, in the second/foreign language writing process, as were also found in the participants’ writing processes of the present study, it was found that writers tend to pay much attention to decisions about the right form/structure as well as to searching for appropriate words in the second language (Cumming, 2001: 5). This is in line with Silva (1993)’s statement that compared to first language writing, second language writing is “strategically, rhetorically, and linguistically different in important ways” (p. 669). Those second/foreign language problems may constrain writers’ attention to formulate complex ideas, their capacity to cope with the high knowledge demand situations, and the scope of their planning (Jones & Tetroe, 1987; Fagan & Hayden, 1988; Uzawa & Cumming, 1989; Whalen & Menard, 1995; Roca de Larios et al., 1999; Cumming, 2001). To deal with the constraints, the writers need to apply a set of strategies that can be used to manage the second/foreign language problems in the writing process.
needs, determining genre and writing style, brainstorming for ideas related to the topics, planning structure and content before and while writing, organizing ideas, adjusting wording and sentence patterns, reassessing and revising the written text, and confirming the whole text with writer’s goal for the task. Those activities, which were regulated by their meta-cognitive knowledge, were also found in the pre-writing, pre-writing, and post-writing stages of the participants’ processes of writing in the present study. As suggested by several researchers in second/foreign language learning and writing strategies, meta-cognitive strategies are the key to successful language learning (O’ Malley & Chamot, 1990; Chamot, 2004) and are directly responsible for the execution of cognitive activities, such as reading and writing (Wenden, 1991; Mu, 2007). Therefore, more research on meta-cognitive strategies in second/foreign language writing process, as what was concerned in this study, should be conducted.
products. This decision was taken in order to compare the processes and the products of writing strategies used. As stated by some researchers on learning strategies (e.g. Brown & Palinscar, 1982; Brown, 1980; and Wenden, 1991, 1993) cited in Victori (1997: 179), there is direct relation between meta-cognitive strategies and more successful language learning. Thus, the scores of the writing products may become the indicators of success in this study to be related with the use of meta-cognitive strategies. Besides, different writers with different levels of language proficiency may perform different strategic behaviors in their writing processes (see Roca de Larios et
al., 1999; Manchon et al., 2000). Therefore, this thesis focused on investigating the
processes and meta-cognitive strategies used by four Indonesian tertiary level EFL student writers in their process of writing an essay in English as a foreign language based on their scores of the writing products as well as their levels of language proficiency.
The use of the two data collecting methods stated above was instigated by some reasons. First, the concurrent think-aloud protocols seemed to have been the most chosen method of data collections in the studies of writing process and strategies. This may happen because the main goal of this kind of study was to describe the patterns of processes and strategies used while writing an English essay. Besides that, this method was concerned as better than the other methods for its richness, authenticity, and less structuring of data than those gained from the others (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995; Jansen et al., 1996). Moreover, the immediateness of the data collection time, concerning the writers’ use of short term memory, had also become an advantage of this method. Through think-aloud method, “insights which are difficult or even impossible to obtain by other methods” (Hurd, 2007: 4; see also Perl, 1984: 23) could be revealed. For example, the information obtained from think-aloud method may not appear on the draft and may be forgotten by the time an interview or questionnaire takes place. Therefore, based on the considerations above, think-aloud method was chosen as the main method of gaining the data in this study.
1.2. Objectives of the Study
Based on the research background stated above, a study entitled “Writing Processes and Meta-cognitive Strategies of Four Indonesian Tertiary EFL Students” was conducted, aiming
1. To identify the processes of writing underwent by the EFL students.
2. To identify the meta-cognitive strategies used by the participants in their processes of writing an English essay.
1.3. Significance of the Study
The results of the study are expected to give contributions to both the theory and practice of second/foreign language writing studies. First, this study may fill the gap of the scant of studies in think-aloud protocol based research on the process and strategy of writing conducted in foreign language context, especially in Indonesia. As has been noticed by Guangwei Hu and Bo Chen (2006), most studies with the aims of revealing the processes and strategies of writing were conducted in western educational settings involving ESL learners. Even though much research has been conducted in EFL settings, most of them were in Chinese (e.g. Wang & Wen, 2002; Hu & Chen, 2006; etc.), Polish (e.g. Skibniewski & Skibniewska, 1986; Skibniewski, 1988; etc.), and Spanish (e.g. Victori, 1997, 1999; Roca de Larios et al., 1999, 2001, 2006, 2008; Armengol-Castells, 2001; Roca de Larios & Murphy, 2001; Manchon, et
al., 2005; etc.) language settings. Therefore, research to uncover the complex patterns
context and language setting is needed in order to add information to the theory of writing in the country.
Second, the information provided from the results of the study is expected to lead to the enhancement of writing teachers/lecturers’ reflections of their current practices. The reflections may enable teachers/lecturers to adapt their approaches in teaching English writing with more considerations to their learners’ awareness of thinking about their writing process and strategies. Moreover, this may also raise the issue of ‘teach-ability’ of meta-cognitive composing strategies in order to empower learners with control of their compositions. This study investigates the processes as well as meta-cognitive strategies used by students in writing an English essay. By having identified the processes and strategies used by the students in the process of writing an essay, English writing teachers can introduce the processes and teach the strategies to them, so that they can help the students adapt to the target discourse community more quickly.
1.4. Scope of the Study
Previous studies on process and strategies of second/foreign language writing (e.g. Sasaki & Hirose, 1996; Roca de Larios et al., 1999; Manchon et al., 2000; Sasaki, 2004; etc.) have shown that different writers may perform different strategic behavior in their processes of writing a second language essay. Furthermore, those studies have also indicated that the level of language proficiency may influence the processes and strategies used in writing an essay in a second/foreign language. Therefore, this study investigates the processes as well as meta-cognitive strategies used by the participants with higher and lower scores of writing, besides their different levels of language proficiency.
1.5. Definitions of Terms
To avoid misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or ambiguities of several terms used in the study, the researcher defines the terms as follows:
1. Writing processes: the stages gone through by writers as they compose, as suggested by experts in writing process studies (e.g. Emig, 1971; Perl, 1978, 1979, 1981; Pianko, 1979; Stallard, 1979; Hayes & Flower, 1980; Murray, 1980; Sommers, 1980; Murray, 1982; Flower and Hayes, 1981; Zamel, 1983; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Skibniewski, 1988; Roca de Larios et al., 2001, 2008).
3. Meta-cognitive strategies: strategies applied by second/foreign language learners that entail planning for, monitoring, and/or evaluating the success of a learning activity (O’ Malley & Chamot, 1990: 44), and are directly responsible for the execution of a writing task (Wenden, 1991; Mu, 2007: 9). 4. Think-aloud protocols: “rich data sources” consisting of subjects’ “spoken
thoughts” (Ericsson & Simon, 1980) associated with working on a task.
1.6. Thesis Organization
This thesis consists of five chapters with the organization presented as follows:
Chapter I discusses the introduction dealing with the background of the research, the objectives of the study, the research methodology in brief, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, the definitions of the terms, and the organization of the thesis.
Chapter II discusses the literature review underpinning the values of writing in general, the theories of writing process and strategy based on previous studies in second language writing processes and strategies; as well as the use of think-aloud protocols in the studies of writing processes and strategies.
Chapter IV discusses the data presentation, analyses, and findings of the results, based on those obtained from the think-aloud protocols and post-writing questionnaires.
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter has discussed the literature review underpinning the values of writing in general, as well as the processes and strategies used in writing. This chapter discusses some important aspects related to research methodology, including the research questions, research design, participants of the study, research instruments, data collection place, time, and procedures, and data analysis procedures.
3.1. Research Questions
The study was conducted in order to answer the following questions:
1. What writing processes did the Indonesian tertiary EFL students undergo?
2. What meta-cognitive strategies did the participants apply in their processes of writing an English essay?
3.2. Research Design
1980, 1981; Raimes, 1985; Arndt, 1987; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Victori, 1997, 1999; Armengol-Castells, 2001; Mu, 2007; and Roca de Larios et al., 2008) and language learning strategies (e.g. O’Malley & Chamot, 1990) employed the think aloud protocols as their research method. This method was used in the belief that it would give a more accurate picture of participants’ online processing on what they were thinking while writing, so that the processes and strategies used by the subjects could be described.
method. This was especially done in order to illustrate the results of the data analyses in chapter four.
Following previous case studies on English as first, second, and foreign language writing process and strategies (e.g. Emig, 1971; Perl, 1978; Zamel, 1983; Arndt, 1987; Raimes, 1985, 1987; Victori, 1997, 1999; Armengol-Castells, 2001; and Hu & Chen, 2006) except Flower and Hayes (1981), this study employed multiple data collection methods. Among them were think aloud protocols, post-writing questionnaires, and video-taped observations of the participants in the process of writing. As suggested by Yin (1993) that “multiple sources of evidence – converging from the same set of issues” (p.32) or “multiple data collections and analytic procedures” (Freebody, 2003: 83) should be applied in order to increase the construct validity of the study (Yin, 1993: 39-40). Therefore, the findings obtained from the think aloud protocols were triangulated with the findings obtained from the other data collecting methods used in this study.
3.3. Participants of the Study
participated in the study. As stated in chapter one, the participants of the study were classified based on their levels of English language proficiency, as one of the variables.
In order to get more valid results of the participants’ levels of English proficiency, a week before the data collection time, each of them took a PTESOL (Proficiency Test of English for Speakers of Other Languages) test at the language center. This test was taken without any preparations in order to get their real ability of English language proficiency. This procedure is in line with Carson and Kuehn (1992) and Cohen and Brooks-Carson (2001) that standardized test should be used in classifying participants’ language proficiency. As listed by Carson and Kuehn (1992), participants with TOEFL scores of 420-480 could be classified as having a low intermediate level of English proficiency. Those who scored 480-520 were classified as high intermediate, and those who scored 525 and above were considered as advanced. Since PTESOL test has been claimed as similar to TOEFL, in which English structure, reading comprehension, and listening are included (Sukyadi, in private conference through telephone, June 24, 2009), the scores obtained from PTESOL could be equaled to those of TOEFL.
describing a low-intermediate level of English language proficiency. The descriptions of the participants’ characteristics can be seen more clearly in Table 3.1. (Appendix I)
3.4. Research Instruments
There were two instruments employed in the data collection of this study. Both of them were writing prompt and post-writing questionnaire. All of which will be elaborated in the following sub-titles.
3.4.1. Writing prompt
A topic of a recent issue in English education field was used as the writing prompt in the data collection. The prompt was as follows:
Nowadays, English mastery has been emphasized to the educational
outcomes in Indonesia. This is shown through the regulation of the 2003 System of National Education Act number 20 article 50 subsection 3, which states that “the government and/or the local government[s] will establish at least one educational institution of all levels to be developed into an international standard educational institution”. Since this regulation was released, the government has established numerous international standard schools (Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional = SBI), in which English is used as the medium of instruction for subjects that have global significance, such as science and mathematics. However, there are pro and contradictive opinions towards this program. The proponents state that this program may be successful and may increase students’ proficiency of both English and the content subjects. In contrast, the opponents argue that this program may not be feasible since the teachers and the supporting facilities have not been ready yet. How do you think about this? Do you agree or disagree to the use of English as the medium of instruction in math and science subjects as those practiced in SBI programs? Why? State your stance whether pro or contra and explain your arguments specifically in an approximately 300 words persuasive essay!
students of English education program at the same university. Besides, bilingualism in education has become a burning issue in Indonesian educational field (Hallett, 2005; Arifin, 2003). As argued by Roca de Larios et al. (2008: 35), topic familiarity is essential to be considered in designing writing tasks since it may influence participants’ degree of involvement. Therefore, the researcher used the topic above as the writing prompt in her study.
3.4.2. Post-writing questionnaire
those aspects as well as their strategies in solving the problems. In the third point of the questionnaire, the participants were asked to state the things they did after writing the essay, whether they did some proof-readings or revisions or not.
3.5. Data Collection Place, Time, and Procedures
In this study, the data were consisted of participants’ audio and video recorded think aloud protocols taken while performing an English persuasive/argumentative writing task. Besides that, participants’ retrospective verbal data were also gained from post-writing questionnaires. The think aloud session was done within a time limit of one hour plus another 30 minutes for revisions conducted in the next week. Total time spent for the think aloud sessions was 90 minutes. The data collection was conducted in a language laboratory in the Language Center (Balai Bahasa) of Indonesia Education University, Bandung. This place was chosen for its availability of advanced recording tools and quiet atmosphere, so that the participants’ voice could be clearly recorded. Since the primary data used in this study was participants’ verbalizations during writing an English essay, clear recordings of their voice were obviously required. The data were collected in two separated times for the essay and revision, started from April 30th to May 14th 2008.
post-writing questionnaire. Each of which will be discussed in more details in the following sub-titles.
3.5.1. Think aloud protocols
As stated previously that this study applied think aloud protocols as a main method of gaining the data. However, this method has some limitations (see point 2.5 in the previous chapter) that may threaten the validity. Therefore, to anticipate the threats of validity associated with this method, the researcher took some measures in collecting the data, which basically entailed making decisions regarding to three main areas. Among them were the choice of the task, the elicitation of the verbalizations, and the coding of the data (see Roca de Larios et al., 2001 for further information about this issue). The first two measures will be discussed in this sub-title, whereas the latter will be discussed in the data analysis procedures sub-title.
commonly occur in think aloud protocols could be overcome and a more useful and informative protocol data would be obtained.
Second, regarding to the elicitation of verbalizations, before starting the data collection session, the researcher gave carefully selected wordings of instruction in Indonesian. This procedure was taken in order to avoid over- and/or under-estimations and interpretations about the things required from the participants and the type of information the participants should report (Jourdenais, 2001: 356 in Roca de Larios et al., 2008: 35). The instruction translated into English was as follows:
I’d like you to write a composition based on the writing prompt that I am going to give you now. While you are writing your composition, I would like you to SAY ALOUD anything and everything that goes through your mind. You have to do everything that you would normally do when writing a composition. The only difference is that today you are going to do it talking aloud. You may use any language(s) that you normally use when writing. You will have a maximum of 1 hour to complete the task.
participants’ choice of language. This was avoided, since it was essential to let the participants use the language they would feel more comfortable with for their verbalizations. After all participants have got used to talking whilst writing the mock essay, the data collection session was started.
During the execution of the task, the participants were allowed to use both English and Indonesian. This was done because language choice in think aloud procedure might require participants’ recoding of information. Besides that, any constraints such as poor command of the language being used for reporting may cause information loss or alter the original thinking processes. Therefore, the participants were allowed to make use of any of both languages they felt comfortable with.
Furthermore, in the execution of the task, the participants sometimes forgot to think aloud. In order to remind them to keep talking what they were thinking, the researcher prompted them with questions such as “What are you thinking about?” or “What is in your mind?”, whenever the participants paused for more than five seconds. By taking the two measures above, as suggested by Roca de Larios et al. (2001), the validity of the think aloud method may be increased.
3.5.2. Post-writing questionnaire
nature in order to support the findings gained from the think aloud protocols, so that the researcher could draw a complete description of the participants’ writing process and strategies. Besides that, the findings from this method were also used in order to triangulate the findings from the think aloud protocols as well as observation, so that the validity and reliability of the research may be obtained.
3.6. Data Analysis Procedures
After collecting the data, the researcher analyzed them qualitatively and triangulated them in order to get the conclusion. The procedures of the data analysis will be elaborated in the following subsections.
3.6.1. The Scoring of the Writing Task
First, in order to fulfill the requirements of reliability and validity, a standardized holistic scoring guide was applied. Even though the subjects were given additional 30 minutes to revise their first drafts on the next day, the tasks were timed writings, which essays were essentially first drafts. As stated by Carson and Kuehn (1992: 168) that timed writing essays “do not allow for an evaluation of the full range of writing abilities that might be explored if the writers were given more time and opportunities to revise”. Therefore, in this study the essays were evaluated by using “The 1993-1994 Focused Holistic Scoring Guide for Persuasive/argumentative Composition” published by North Carolina Annual Testing Commission (1994). This scoring guide was chosen for its valid and reliable scorings for persuasive/argumentative essays.
the writer must attempt through the composition to bring about a change in a current condition, whether circumstantial or philosophical (Connor & Lauer, 1988: 138), so that the reader becomes in the same line with the writer’s point of view (Derewianka, 2004: 75). Therefore, the writer should take a position regarding to the subject matter by possibly making use of inductive organizational plan and building an argument through examples or details so that the readers may identify it. A composition would be regarded as having a clear main idea if the writer’s position is clear, whether or not the statement of the position occurs at the beginning of the composition.
Third, a composition is valued as having a good command of organization if it establishes a sense of overall plan in the beginning, development, and ending. Besides that, it should also follow the schematic structure of persuasive/argumentative writing, either exposition (thesis statement (position) – arguments – restatement of the thesis (position)) or discussion (issue – argument for – argument against – conclusion) (see Derewianka, 2004: 70-71; Feez & Joyce, 1998: 138-140, for further discussion about types of persuasive/argumentative writing). Fourth, an essay may be regarded as coherent if the sentences (such as ideas, causes, and/or statements) are logically connected. Coherency results from the effective use of organization, unity, reason, and logic by employing one or more cohesive devices. As identified by Halliday and Hasan (1976, in Gibbons 1991: 83-86), there are five ways of making text cohesive; among them are by using reference, conjunction (connectives), substitution, ellipsis, and lexical cohesion (synonyms). First, reference is words pointing to something in the text. These words may point back to something that has been mentioned or forward to what is going to be said. Reference includes words such as he, she, it, his, hers, him, her, their, them, here, there, the, this, those,
that. For example, like what mentioned in the following text:
From the text above, it can be seen that the underlined words refer to what have been mentioned in the previous sentences. The use of these words makes the text more coherent.
Second, conjunctions or connectives are words that are used to link and organize ideas. These include words indicating addition, contradiction, cause and effect, and conclusion, such as and, but, because, so, unless, although, if, however,
nevertheless, therefore, etc. Besides that, there are also words that are used to
sequence ideas in time (time connectives), such as and, and then, before, after, later,
the next day, millions of years later, afterwards, etc. By using conjunctions and
connectives, readers may interpret or predict the next idea in the text. The example of the use of conjunctions can be seen in the following text:
He walked all day although he was exhausted. Finally he stopped outside a small hotel in a village. If he went in, someone might recognize him, but unless he stopped to rest he would get no further. So, hoping he would remain unrecognized, he opened the door. (adapted from Gibbons, 1991: 84).
From the example above, it can be seen that the use of conjunctions will make the text sound more fluent and structured, since this helps readers to recognize and interpret the main ideas of the text.
He was given a new bike for his birthday. His old one was too small for him. (Gibbons, 1991: 85)
The example above indicates that by using substitution, the text can sound more coherent and logical.
Fourth, a text can be coherent by using ellipsis, in which some parts of a sentence with parallel structure are omitted, in order to avoid redundancy. For example, like those happen in the following sentences:
Some cats like cheese but some (cats) don’t (like cheese).
He sat down, (he) stood up and then (he) sat down again. (Gibbons, 1991: 85)
From the example above, we can see that the words in brackets can be omitted in order to make the text more effective and avoid it to sound unnecessarily ‘wordy’.
Finally, in order to avoid repetitions of using the same words in a text, a writer may apply lexical cohesion, in which different words with similar meanings (synonyms) are used. Besides that, the use of lexical cohesion may also indicate links of the sentences. For example, like those used in the following text:
They were now in a country of thick forests and rushing rivers. The giant had definitely slowed down and was now running more normally although normal was a silly word to describe a galloping giant. He leapt over a dozen rivers. He went
rattling through a great forest then down into a valley and up over a range of hills,
The example above indicates that many of the content words in the text fall into two groups, i.e. those to do with movement (the bold ones) and those to do with physical aspects of the scene (the italic bold ones). These strings of related words can hold the sentences together.
The composing domain is evaluated by using four scale focused holistic rubrics (see Table 3.2. in Appendix I). Here, the possible highest score of 4, indicating a strong command of persuasive writing, would be assigned to compositions with following criteria: (a) the writer has identified and taken a positive position about the subject matter; (b) the writer has appropriately and effectively presented persuasive information in support of the position having been taken: (c) the organization provides a clear sense of logical progression and overall completeness; and (d) the composition is coherent. In contrast, the possible lowest score of 1, exhibiting a lack command of persuasive writing, would be devoted to compositions that have: (a) indication that the writer has read the prompt and has attempted to respond to it; (b) little or no sense of focus on the subject and little or no clear cause for the position provided; (c) no strategy or sense of control or have control with only one or two unelaborated reasons to support the position.
domain, including sentence formation, usage, and mechanics. This means that a composition would be rated as having a “+” for convention if it has complete sentences, correct usages, and skillful use of mechanics. Sentences are considered to be complete if the “T-units and their constituents are internally related and either coordinated with or separated from each other” (North Carolina Annual Testing Commission, 1994). Examples of typical errors in sentence formation are run-on sentences (in which two complete T-units are fused together without any conjunctives and punctuated as one sentence) and sentence fragments (which do not form a complete T-unit but is punctuated as a sentence).
Regarding the usage, a composition would be considered as having a correct usage if it makes use of acceptable and effective selections of words, grammatical forms, and idioms for standard, formal, edited, written English communication. Errors in using pronouns, verbs, subject-verb agreements, and negating constructions in English composition would be rated as “-“ for the conventions. Finally, a “+” would be given to the compositions with adept use of mechanics. This involves the use of conventional representational cues and symbols (such as spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) in constructing language units. Errors in spelling, punctuation, and capitalization would also be scored as “-“.
products of each participant. The scores of the written products, together with the total time spent by each participant, and the length of the final written products, compared with the strategies used by the participants in this study, were used as the data to answer the second research question.
3.6.2. Think aloud Protocols
There were several steps taken in the analysis of the think aloud data. First, following Perl (1978, 1984), Raimes (1985), Arndt (1987), Victori (1997, 1999), and Roca de Larios et al. (2008) the recorded think aloud protocols were transcribed verbatim using the standard Indonesian and English writing systems with the inclusion of false starts, hesitations, repetitions, pauses, and paralinguistic features (such as laughter, coughs, etc.). The underlined written text was then distinguished from the processes which generated it and rereading/repetitions were italicized. Finally, the revisions/editings made to the written text were marked in the protocols with double underlining (see Appendix IV).
The categorizations of the coding scheme were based on the preliminary analysis on the think aloud transcription as well as the synthesis of theories of second/foreign language composing process and learning strategies stated in chapter two. The coding schemes used in the study were as follows:
1. Planning strategies: Strategies undertaken when planning and talking out the
next ideas, and explicitly stating his/her objectives for content organization and writing procedures.
a. Planning overall content and ideas (PLid): retrieving ideas, relating new information, making connections among existing ideas and setting general content goals either in the form of notes or verbalization.
b. Planning procedures (PL pr): Planning subsequent actions such as procedures or strategies to be adopted (sub), or planning delayed actions such as postponing an action deliberately (Post)
c. Planning organization (PLor): grouping ideas, deciding on the overall organization of the text, deciding how to sequence ideas and how to structure the text as a whole or parts of it.
d. Planning linguistic text (PLtx): rehearsing or verbalizing several versions of the text to be produced.
2. Monitoring strategies: Strategies undertaken when checking and verifying
progress in the composing process and when identifying oncoming problems. a. Task Monitoring (TM): assessing how the task is progressing; how
successfully the intended meaning is conveyed; tracking the use of how well a strategy is working or whether there is a need for adopting a new one.
b. Self Monitoring (SM): expressing one’s feelings towards the task, becoming aware that one is having problems.
3. Evaluating strategies: Strategies undertaken when reconsidering the written
text, previous goals, planned thoughts, and changes undertaken on the text. a. Evaluating strategies (EV): questioning or evaluating the written text or
planned thoughts.
b. Reviewing strategies (REW): reconsidering previously set goals (g), or reading (R) for the whole text (wl), the previous sentence (s) or paragraph (p)
c. Revising strategies (REV): making changes to the text in order to clarify meaning (such as problems with ideas, word choice, cohesion, coherence, and organization)
After the protocols were coded in the timeline charts, the items of the categories were counted by using a simple count, in order to know the frequency of each category occurrences. Then, based on the timelines and the occurrence frequency of each strategy, the strategies used in the writing process of each participant were analyzed and described.
Besides counting the occurrence of the strategies used, the researcher also measured the time spent by each participant in each of the writing stages in order to illustrate the findings and compare it with the length and score of the final written products, so that the conclusions to the findings could be made.
3.6.3. Post-writing questionnaire
Participants’ answers to the questionnaire were coded in accordance with the coding schemes for the think aloud protocols and triangulated with the findings gained from the think aloud protocols as well as the writing products and observation in order to validate the results of the study.
3.7. Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS
Chapter four has displayed and discussed the data analyses from think-aloud protocols and post-writing questionnaires. Chapter five concludes the study by proposing the contribution or consolidation of the reported study to the previous studies in writing processes and strategies (Section 5.1). Besides that, this chapter also warns the readers with the limitations of the study (Section 5.2.) and puts forward the implications of the study to the teaching of writing that may be beneficial for English as a foreign language writing teachers and lecturers (Section 5.3.). Finally, in the same section, some recommendations are also suggested for further think-aloud protocol based studies of writing processes and strategies.
5.1. Conclusions of the Study
This thesis reports the results of a think-aloud protocol-based study of the writing process and meta-cognitive strategies gone through and applied by four Indonesian tertiary EFL students in writing an English essay. The purpose of the study is to discover the processes of writing as well as the way the meta-cognitive strategies used by the participants.
stages of writing process. This finding is relevant to the findings of previous researchers (e.g. Emig, 1971; Perl, 1978, 1979, 1981; Pianko, 1979; Stallard, 1979; Flower and Hayes, 1980, 1981; Sommers, 1980; and Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
Besides that, it is also shown that all participants, in accordance with the scores of the writing products and their levels of language proficiency, applied all meta-cognitive strategies differently. It is evident that some writers are able to undertake a writing approach that is more conducive to produce better writing products than others with lower or higher levels of language proficiency. Interestingly, lower scored essays were written by participants with advanced and low-intermediate levels of language proficiency. This corresponds to previous researchers (e.g. Cumming, 1989, Whalen & Menard, 1995; Sasaki & Hirose, 1996; Victori, 1997) that there is a lack of interdependence between linguistic and writing competence.
evaluated their essays by applying larger numbers of revision. Besides, they also set a wider range of reviewing and editing objectives, including reviewing and editing the topic knowledge and the content of the essays.
Furthermore, the higher-scored writers were found to have approached the writing processes with more effort than the lower-scored ones. This was indicated by their efforts in getting their intended meanings across, besides having enough knowledge about the topic of writing. These efforts and possessions of enough topic knowledge has led them to the generation of more alternative ideas, more rehearsing attempts, more evaluations of both ideas and word choice, and more revisions on ideas and coherence. As a result, these meta-cognitive strategies seemed to have brought the use of stronger words, more elaborated ideas and more cohesive and coherent paragraphs than those of the lower-scored ones.
5.2. Limitations of the Study
Some factors in this study may exhibit some limitations, one of which is the size of the sample, i.e. four Indonesian university level EFL students. This small sample may result in a low level of generalization. However, considering the limited time and budgets provided to conduct a research with larger subjects, the researcher decided to conduct a small sample one instead. Moreover, there might be unnoticeable biases on behalf of the researcher in synthesizing the results of the study. The overall synthesis of the findings may be affected by the limitations of the researcher’s knowledge of the subject matter as well as her analytical and expressive abilities. Therefore, a second rater was employed in analyzing as well as evaluating the data and drafts of this thesis, so that more objective results may be obtained.
Besides, the opportunities to demonstrate the subjects’ strategies in composing may be limited, since they were required to write only in one specific writing mode, i.e. argumentative. As argued by some experts (e.g. Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Cumming, 1989; Grabe, 2001; Wang & Wen, 2002; Hu & Chen, 2006), the same writer writing in different modes (e.g. argumentative and descriptive) may apply different processes and strategies. However, the application of the think-aloud procedure may serve as a rich-data source that provide the researcher with loads of data to be analyzed.
factors above may result limitations in demonstrating subjects’ overall writing processes and strategies.
5.3. Recommendations
Concerning the limitations of this study, some measures are recommended to be done for further research. Among them are, first, in order to obtain the feasibility of the findings to be generalized, further study should involve more participants, with specific characteristics, such as those with certain level of language proficiency or those with certain experience of English writing.
Second, in order to avoid biases that commonly appear in think-aloud based studies, other procedures of data collection technique, such as interview and questionnaires should be used. This is done as a member-check in order to support or validate the data obtained from the think-aloud protocols.
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