VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS’ WRITING PROBLEMS IN TERMS OF THE FACTORS RELATING TO THEIR META-KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH INFORMATION STRUCTURE

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study which investigates the problems Vietnamese university non-major English students of two levels of English proficiency encountered in their English writing in terms of the factors relating to their meta-knowledge of English information structure and the extent to which a cognitive meta-linguistic approach to teaching second language (L2) writing can help the learners overcome their writing problems and develop their written communicative ability by first enhancing their meta-knowledge of English information structure. Their problems are conceptualized as being associated with their employing or not employing some writing strategies that can either support or hinder their writing skills development. The analyses of the problems were based on the learners’ responses to the questionnaire and interviews, their writing in the writing tasks and classroom-based worksheets and answer sheets. The findings suggested that the learners in the study encountered the writing problems anticipated before, during and after the intervention. The percentages of the learners encountering the problems decreased over time and the extent to which each problem was solved towards the end of the post-teaching phase varied according to each specific problem. Transfer of first language (L1) strategies was reported in all of the writing problems. The influence of L1 transfer was variable with extremely low evidence of topic-prominent structure. In general, there were no big differences between the two groups in their encountering and overcoming the problems investigated.