The Impact of Strategy-based Instruction on L2 Learners’ Persuasive Writing

Abstract

It is important to teach students how to write essays in second/foreign (L2) effectively by various instructional techniques. Moreover, persuasive writing is one of the means by which students can be encouraged to create meaning. This study then investigates whether strategy-based instruction is an effective classroom-based practice in raising the ability in persuasive type of writing. Additionally, it compares the effectiveness of process-oriented strategy-based instruction with a nonstrategy-based instruction in an advanced writing course. In so doing, it employed Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) and non-SRSD (i.e. a more product-oriented traditional method) models in two writing classes at two universities. The SRSD model included six stages (Develop Background Knowledge, Discuss Strategy, Model It, Memorize It, Support It, and Independent Performance) using POW + TREE mnemonic chart, persuasive essay examples, TREE graphic organizer, and transition word chart. To probe the objectives of study, 60 Iranian EFL undergraduates participated in the study which used a pretest-posttest control group design. The analyses of covariance revealed that both SRSD and non-SRSD instructions had a significant impact on the EFL participants’ persuasive writing ability. But SRSD model was significantly more effective in improving the persuasive writing ability of the EFL learners (i.e., format and content, organization and coherence, sentence construction and vocabulary in writing). By implication, if L2 learners have the necessary metacognitive knowledge and self-regulation strategies of L2 writing, they will come to achieve competence in L2 writing sooner, which allows them to attain a positive sense of self-efficacy in their writing.