THE ROLE OF WRITING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

This paper aimed to investigate the possible relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ writing strategies and their language proficiency. The current study enjoyed a mixed-method design. In the quantitative phase, a sample of 283 English students from three universities majoring in English participated in the study. Pearson correlation, one-way ANOVA, and independent sample t-test were among different measures used in the study. The findings showed that writing strategies were significantly correlated with the participants’ English language proficiency. Follow-up interviews were also conducted to collect additional information on the students’ use of writing strategies. The qualitative phase of the study yielded several important results contributing to our understanding of writing strategies use. A content analysis of interview results revealed that most students paid less attention to metacognitive strategies while writing. Implications of the study and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Writing Strategies, Proficiency Level, Iranian EFL learners