Research On EFL Writing Strategy Using SRP-An Empirical Study In DUT

In the past 20 years, the researches in the field of ESL writing have made great progress. However, research on EFL writing strategies is to some degree still a latecomer, especially in China. The review of the previous studies at home shows that most of the research subjects are adults; researches on local techniques outnumber those on global strategies and the researchers employed either qualitative or quantitative instrument in the researches. Motivated by the limitation of the previous researches, the present study focuses on the writing strategies of Chinese college EFL writers. Conducted in Dalian University of Technology (DUT) , the study aims at analyzing the relations among writing proficiency, writing strategy and writing scores. A combination of quantitative instrument, questionnaire and qualitative instrument Stimulated Recall Protocol is employed in this study and computer software SPSS 10.0 is used to compile statistics. It is found that there exist significant differences in strategy use between English major and non-English major writers; English major students hold a more positive attitude towards English writing; both English major students and non-English major students can not handle the strategy of "coherence" well and English major students pay more attention to "global" strategies while non-English major students pay more attention to "local" strategies. Not only are the findings of the present study pedagogically helpful for EFL teachers, but also they reveal the writing habits of Chinese EFL writers with different writing proficiency, which can help them improve their own writing.