The Impact Of Self-regulated Strategy Development On EFL Learners’ Argumentative Writing Performance

According to China’s Standards of English Language Ability(2018),English writing performance plays a crucial role in evaluating EFL(English as a Foreign Language)learners’ language production ability.The self-regulated strategy development(SRSD)model is a writing teaching model based on strategy teaching,aiming to enable students to effectively conduct self-regulated learning.Additionally,with the development of natural language processing technology,automated writing evaluation(AWE)system is increasingly applied in college English teaching.In order to better promote college students’ English writing ability and prepare them for academic English writing,this study explores the impact of SRSD instruction based on AWE system on EFL learners’ argumentative writing performance.Under the theoretical framework of constructivism and social cognition theory,an18-week empirical study of English writing teaching was implemented with three groups of non-English majors in a university.Three research questions were proposed:(1)compared with traditional writing teaching,does the use of AWE system promote the implementation of SRSD instruction more effectively?(2)how does AWE-based SRSD instruction impact students’ argumentative writing ability?(3)what’s the social validity of AWE-based SRSD instruction? With research methods of testing,statistical analysis and corpus-based text analysis,the experimental results show that AWE system can promote the implementation of SRSD instruction.AWE-based SRSD instruction has a positive influence on students’ argumentative writing quality,such as writing score,lexical richness,lexical density,writing length,sentence length,and organization.Under its guidance,students improve their ability of using self-regulated learning(SRL)strategy.Moreover,AWE-based SRSD instruction also obtains most teachers and students’ consistent high praise.AWE-based SRSD instruction provides a new perspective for college English writing teaching.It not only enhances students’ English writing production ability but also stimulates their motivation of English writing.From the perspective of teachers,it enriches teaching methods and reduce the workload of correcting a large number of compositions.In terms of English teaching,it makes up for the deficiency of traditional writing teaching and promotes the change of classroom roles of teachers and students.In short,SRSD instruction based on AWE system has practical significance and good application prospect in college English writing teaching.