Effects Of Dialogue Journal Writing On Chinese Learners’ English Writing

Research by domestic and foreign scholars have shown that dialogue journal writing(DJW)is an effective means of improving students’ writing ability.DJW is a written communication between teachers and students in the form of a diary and it is a way for students to reflect on their inner activities and real feelings during the process of English writing.Likewise,teachers can take advantage of DJW to comprehend a range of students’ behaviors and performance in their learning process.Forty-four first-year English majors participate in the present study and were divided equally into an experimental and a control group.Students in the experimental group were asked to write a dialogue journal each week for a semester,but students in the control group were not.Then,based on the social cognitive theory,this study analyzes the impacts of DJW on Chinese English learners’ writing proficiency,writing self-efficacy and affective engagement in writing.Results of the study showed that DJW had significant effects on Chinese English learners’ writing self-efficacy and affective engagement in writing,but not on their writing proficiency.To be specific:(1)DJW did not have a significant influence on students’ writing proficiency but it significantly enhanced students’ ability of using vocabulary in writing and it had a marginally significant influence on the ability of organization;(2)DJW had a significant impact on the improvement of students’ writing skill self-efficacy and writing task self-efficacy;DJW can significantly enhance students’ writing self-efficacy and reduce learners’ writing anxiety;(3)DJW had a significant impact on the enhancement of learners’ internal affective engagement,especially on their writing confidence and writing interest;DJW could significantly enhance learners’ “identification with teachers”(which is one dimension of the external affective engagement),and qualitative analysis also demonstrated that DJW could develop a closer relationship between teachers and students which promoted their communication effectively.This study validated the idea of triadic reciprocal determinism in social cognitive theory,and findings of the present study have some implications for English writing instruction.