| The present study investigated the writing processes of three groups of Chinese EFL learners at different levels of English proficiency. It was aimed at exploring: (1) the subprocesses that these students experienced and the writing behaviors that they demonstrated; (2) the writing strategies that they adopted; and (3) the role of the mother tongue in the their processes of English writing.; The data of this study came from questionnaires, think-aloud protocols, real-time observations, stimulated recalls, and written products, among which think-aloud protocols served as the main source of data. After the think-aloud protocols were transcribed, segmented, and coded, specific writing strategies were identified, categorized, and analyzed. Then the converted quantitative data were processed with SPSS for descriptive analysis, two-tailed correlation analysis, and one-way ANOVA test.; The main findings of this study included: (1) the writing processes of the participants shared a linear-staged pattern with recursive activities; (2) cognitive and metacognitive strategies were the main domain of students' writing activities; (3) there appeared a general descending tendency in strategy use, from the least proficient group to the most proficient group, in terms of frequency occurrences and occurrence sequences; (4) descending and ascending trends were identified in the employment of some specific strategies; (5) with a reductive tendency in the numbers of errors and mistakes, an increasing trend was found in textual, syntactic, and coherence features of students' compositions; (6) most students used Chinese as a/the medium of thought to different degrees, with an obvious declining tendency from the least proficient group to the most proficient group in their self-report and their Chinese verbalizations.; Based on the above results, this dissertation interpreted, discussed, and commented on the major findings by referring to existing writing theories and the results of previous studies. Several models were proposed in regards with "linguistic proficiency and thought presentation", "L2 writing competence", and "the writing process of Chinese EFL learners".; This dissertation concluded that linguistic proficiency might affect the writing processes in terms of subprocesses, writing strategies, written texts, and the use of the mother tongue. Tentative pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research were finally provided. |
