THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ONLINE METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH ESSAY AND LETTER WRITING SKILLS
Keywords:
online metacognitive strategies,, online essay and letter writing,, Online Survey of Writing Strategies (OSOWS)Abstract
In the digital advanced technology age, online writing has become an important issue for research in the educational field. People write even if they socialise or look for some information in the Internet. This study reports on an investigation into the effect of explicit teaching of online metacognitive strategies on writing comprehension. This study was carried out on 30 female intermediate level EFL school teachers, who received 12 hours of instructive facilitation on essay and letter writing by a language teaching online Moodle platfom (www.skillsup) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The participants were assigned into the experimental and control groups. Before giving the instruction, the Online Survey of Writing Strategies (OSOWS) was administered in order to find out the online writing strategies used by EFL learners. In the experimental group, the researcher explicitly taught online metacognitive strategies through modeling whereas the method used for the control group was implicit and moodle platform-based. A pre-test post-test design was followed and the data were collected through online essay and letter writing tests. The results revealed that online essay and letter writing comprehension by the experimental group improved significantly. The findings show that explicit teaching of online metacognitive strategies could be beneficial in EFL intermediate classes.
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APPENDIX A:
METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS INVENTORY (MAI)
(Schraw & Dennison, 1994)
Check True or False as appropriate. Use the Scoring Guide after completing the inventory.
True False
I ask myself periodically if I am meeting my goals.
I consider several alternatives to a problem before I answer.
I try to use strategies that have worked in the past.
I pace myself while learning in order to have enough time.
I understand my intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
I think about what I really need to learn before I begin a task
I know how well I did once I finish a test.
I set specific goals before I begin a task.
I slow down when I encounter important information.
I know what kind of information is most important to learn.
I ask myself if I have considered all options when solving a problem.
I am good at organizing information.
I consciously focus my attention on important information.
I have a specific purpose for each strategy I use.
I learn best when I know something about the topic.
I know what the teacher expects me to learn.
I am good at remembering information.
I use different learning strategies depending on the situation.
I ask myself if there was an easier way to do things after I finish a task.
I have control over how well I learn.
I periodically review to help me understand important relationships.
I ask myself questions about the material before I begin.
I think of several ways to solve a problem and choose the best one.
I summarize what I’ve learned after I finish.
I ask others for help when I don’t understand something.
I can motivate myself to learn when I need to
I am aware of what strategies I use when I study.
I find myself analyzing the usefulness of strategies while I study.
I use my intellectual strengths to compensate for my weaknesses.
I focus on the meaning and significance of new information.
I create my own examples to make information more meaningful.
I am a good judge of how well I understand something.
I find myself using helpful learning strategies automatically.
I find myself pausing regularly to check my comprehension.
I know when each strategy I use will be most effective.
I ask myself how well I accomplish my goals once I’m finished.
I draw pictures or diagrams to help me understand while learning.
I ask myself if I have considered all options after I solve a problem.
I try to translate new information into my own words.
I change strategies when I fail to understand.
I use the organizational structure of the text to help me learn.
I read instructions carefully before I begin a task.
I ask myself if what I’m reading is related to what I already know.
I reevaluate my assumptions when I get confused.
I organize my time to best accomplish my goals.
I learn more when I am interested in the topic.
I try to break studying down into smaller steps.
I focus on overall meaning rather than specifics.
I ask myself questions about how well I am doing while I am learning
something new.
I ask myself if I learned as much as I could have once I finish a task.
I stop and go back over new information that is not clear.
I stop and reread when I get confused.
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