Effects of self-monitoring writing strategies instruction on English writing ability of pre-cadets

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to study the effects of how the self-monitoring writing strategies instruction would help students improve their English writing ability and how the self-monitoring writing strategies instruction affect students’ use of self-monitoring writing strategies. The subjects were 31 third-year pre-cadets who studied at the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School in the first semester, academic year 2007. In this study, the researcher constructed the teaching procedures of self-monitoring writing strategies to teach paragraph writing. The instruments used in this research were topics of writing paragraphs, writing journals, and interviews. The data were analyzed using arithmetic mean, t-test, frequency, percentage, and content analysis. The results of the analyses revealed that (1) students who learned self-monitoring writing strategies gained significantly higher average scores on the post English writing test than the pre English writing test at the significance level of 0.05 and the mean of the effect size was at 0.80 which referred to large effect ; (2) students were aware of the importance of correcting content and form by following the checklist, the guideline for checking content and organization, and the guidelines for verifying the forms. There was evidence that students could monitor themselves in revising their English paragraph.