writing & pedagogy

ISSN: 17565839 (print) ISSN: 17565847 (online)

Research Matters

Undergraduate Iranian EFL Learners Use of Writing Strategies

Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh
Abstract This study investigates English language learners writing strategies with reference to their gender and year of study at a university in Iran. To this end, a writing strategies questionnaire was employed to tap into the memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective strategies of 230 participants. Semi-structured interviews with participants were also conducted in addition to the questionnaire. Participants perceptions demonstrated no significant differences in writing strategy use for either gender or year of study. Metacognitive and cognitive strategies were found to be the most frequently used strategies by all writers, and both the low- and high-level male and female learner-writers used writing strategies with approximately the same frequency. Interviews identified sociocultural and contextual differences in students of both genders and years of study which reflect the challenges foreign language learner-writers of English face in an academic context. Further research on writing strategies taking more specific variables, task settings, and contexts into consideration is necessary to shed more light on EFL writing strategy use.
Keywords: writing strategies, direct strategies, indirect strategies, gender, years of study

Affiliation
Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran. email: s_abdolah@iust.ac.ir

WAP vol 2.1 2010 6590 2010, equinox publishing

doi : 10.1558/wap.v2i1.65
LONDON

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Introduction
Learning strategies are defined by Oxford (1990: 14) as steps taken by the learner to facilitate the acquisition, retrieval, or use of information. They are specific actions or techniques students use, often intentionally, to improve their progress in learning language skills and linguistic content. Investigating what strategies second language writers employ can provide an insight into what writers think they are doing or should be doing and thus increase our understanding of the specifics of this process (Silva, 1993). Such investigation can also help develop a predictive model of the construct of writing which can be useful for instructional, research, and educational practices, and for curricular planning and assessment (Grabe, 2001). Oxford (1990) divides learning strategies into direct and indirect strategies. Direct strategies are those behaviors which directly involve the target language and directly enhance language learning (p. 10). They include memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies. Memory strategies deal with storing new information in memory for later retrieval and use. Cognitive strategies deal with the actual mental processes involved in manipulating a text while writing, relating old information to new information, making connections and inferences, and applying background knowledge. Compensation strategies make up for inefficiencies due to limited language knowledge, such as by using synonyms and circumlocutions. Indirect strategies are those behaviors which do not directly involve the target language but are nevertheless essential for effective language learning (Oxford, 1990: 450). They include metacognitive, affective, and social strategies. Metacognitive strategies are the executive strategies learners employ to monitor, plan, hypothesize, and evaluate their performance on learning tasks, as in planning before writing. Social strategies involve seeking help from teachers, peers, and others. Affective strategies are techniques helping learners to better manage their emotions, attitudes, and motivation in their writing activity. Research into the use of strategies by Iranian learners in their English language writing is limited. In second language research, studies on writing strategies refer to the writing behavior of experienced versus inexperienced writers, different writing behaviors in first and second language writing, the use of the first language in second language writing, and how writers perceive and think about writing tasks (Petric and Czarl, 2003). Okamura (2006), for example, discovered that what distinguished established Japanese academic writers from their junior counterparts was the language-oriented writing strategies they employed to achieve native-like fluency in writing. These highly qualified researchers asked native speakers questions about language use in writing for their particular audience, which eventually improved their use of

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English when writing research articles, a strategy not followed by their junior colleagues. Tyacke and Mendelsohns (1986) informal observational study of a writing class found that students who showed the most improvement were those who actively utilized available resources, including teachers and classmates, and who also employed memorization, classification, monitoring, and self-management strategies. On the other hand, unsuccessful students refused to self-direct or reformulate earlier writing, and had low self-esteem. In the same vein, Yaghoubi (2003) examined the writing strategy use among high anxiety and low anxiety Iranian undergraduate EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers and found that the former group of writers made less use of cognitive, metacognitive, social, affective, compensation, and memory strategies compared with the latter group. Both groups used metacognitive strategies most often and affective strategies least often. In the present research, the writing strategies employed by learner writers in the Iranian university context are investigated, taking the gender and year of study of the participants into account. Some research on writing strategies in China as reviewed by Zhang (2003) has shown that revision as a cognitive process is basically similar in the first language (Chinese) and the second language (English), and that there is an obvious positive transfer of the revising skills from writing in Chinese into writing in English. On the other hand, Wang and Wen (2002) discovered in Chinese students a decline of first language use as the writers second language developed, though the extent of the decrease in first language use in individual activities varied. Cohen and Brooks-Carson (2001) realized that the majority of the their learner writers of French as a foreign language did better when they were writing directly in French than when writing in the first language and then translating into French, although one-third of them did better on the translated writing than when writing in French from the start. They argue that writing in the first language and then translating it into the target language can be an alternate means of good writing. Baker and Boonkit (2004) examined the reading and writing strategies of successful and less successful students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context in Thailand using Oxfords classification of strategies. Overall, they found metacognitive, cognitive, and compensation strategies to be the most frequently used strategies. Gender differences have appeared in strategy-based studies, with females usually reporting more frequent strategy use than males (Ehrman and Oxford 1989; Oxford and Nyikos, 1989; Peacock and Ho, 2004). Such findings are important because they suggest that there might be some consistent patterns of differences in the ways that females learn a language, compared with males as a group (Green and Oxford, 1995). If consistent gender differences appear

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in many studies across different skills, cultures, and contexts, this can suggest that biological as well as skills- and culture-related causes for these differences might exist. If so, these causes may have a considerable effect in the foreign language classroom and may also affect the teachers syllabus and teaching methodology. Consequently, studying these strategies in different skill areas and contexts is warranted. Nonetheless, the above-mentioned studies have been mainly concerned with general strategy use of the learners rather than with the adoption of strategies in specific language skill areas such as writing or listening. The present research investigates the writing strategies of memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective types adopted by undergraduate Iranian learners of English. It attempts to discover the role of gender and academic experience in the selection of strategies through a questionnaire and interviews. Different procedures have been used to gather data on language learning strategies: lists based on observation and intuition (Tyacke and Mendelsohn, 1986), interviews and think-aloud procedures (Cohen and Cavalcanti, 1990), note-taking (Cohen and Aphek, 1981), diaries (Carson and Longhini, 2002), surveys and questionnaires (Oxford, 1990), and studies on language learning strategy training (OMalley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Russo, and Kupper, 1985). It is assumed that a questionnaire by itself cannot be a sufficient provider of information about strategy use. Questionnaires also suffer from some limitations such as collecting data away from the real learning context, responses which are limited to the questionnaire designers preferences, and the fact that no elaboration or explanation on choices is elicited (Baker and Boonkit, 2004; Petric and Czarl, 2003). To overcome some of these limitations and for triangulation purposes, interviews were used to get more relevant information and further complementary data along with the questionnaires.

Research Questions
An investigation was undertaken using questionnaires and interviews to find out about the writing strategies used by Iranian university students when writing in English. The following research questions guided the study: 1 2 Which categories of writing strategies do Iranian undergraduates use most frequently in writing English? Is there any statistically significant difference between first-year and final-year male and female Iranian undergraduates in their use of each of the writing strategies?

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3 4

Which writing strategies are used more frequently by first-year versus final-year Iranian undergraduates? Which writing strategies are used more frequently by male versus female Iranian undergraduates?

Participants
The participants were 230 undergraduate university students. They were selected from four state universities with more or less equal reputation in Tehran and included first-year and final-year male and female undergraduate students studying English Language and Literature. The instructors in these four universities agreed to cooperate and get the consent of their students to partake in the study. Students pursuing the English Language and Literature degree were selected because this is the most popular undergraduate degree offered by Iranian state universities across the country. Nonetheless, given that the participants were not selected randomly from all of the English departments across the country, we may not be able to make strong claims about the generalizability of the findings. The participants age was between 18 and 25 (Mean=22). The socio-economic status of the participants was not checked. Participants had all achieved a high school diploma and passed the Iranian national matriculation examination for entering university and were pursuing a BA degree in English Language and Literature. These students formal writing experience before entering university is essentially limited to the formal writing courses in Persian during their elementary and high school days. During their BA studies, they take two obligatory courses in writing. The instructional approach is essentially product-based, and to a large extent teacher-centered. At university, these participants had to take several language-related courses in English (e.g. conversation, study skills, reading, and writing) for the first two years of their studies followed by specialized courses in English literature and English language teaching (e.g. literary schools, literary criticism, essay-writing, language testing, etc.) during the last two years. More specifically, the two obligatory writing courses which they took in addition to other courses were Principles of Writing and Essay Writing. The former deals with an introduction to paragraph writing, mechanics of writing, some academic grammar, writing short paragraphs, types of paragraphs, as well as cohesion and coherence in writing. The latter course content essentially deals with writing well-developed paragraphs for different rhetorical purposes (e.g., argumentation, description), writing summaries, reviews, essays, etc. Language learners level of language ability or performance has been gauged in many different ways in the literature: self-ratings of proficiency, language

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proficiency and achievement tests, entrance and placement examinations, language course grades, years of language study, and career status (Carson and Longhini, 2002; Ehrman and Oxford, 1989). In the present study, years of language study at university, which has been used in other studies as an indicator of language proficiency (Chamot and El-Dinary, 1999; Oxford and Nyikos, 1989; Wharton, 2000), was used to distinguish two groups of participants. The researchers discussion with the writing instructors led us to assume that given the university experience and education these learners acquire during their undergraduate years, we can consider the first-year students as low-proficiency, and the final-year students as a high-proficiency group. At the time of the research, the low-proficiency learners were taking the Principles of Writing course, and the high-proficiency learners were taking the Essay Writing course. After data collection, the total number of participants was reduced to 206 due to some atypical questionnaire responses. The following table summarizes the distribution of the participants in the final analysis.
Table 1: Distribution of Study Participants Gender
Male Female Total

First-year
50 (44.6%) 62 (55.4%) 112 (100%)

Final-year
45 (47.9%) 49 (52.1%) 94 (100%)

Data Collection Instruments

A Writing Strategies Questionnaire was developed in Persian with reference to Oxfords (1990) classification of language leaning strategies types in order to gain information on the writing strategies adopted by language learners (see the Appendix for the English translation of the original Persian). Oxfords classification of language learning strategies is viewed as a comprehensive and efficient classification and thus has been used and adapted for research on learners performance in particular task settings (Ellis, 1994; Oxford, Cho, Leung, and Kim, 2004). The purpose of this questionnaire was to identify which writing strategies these learners were using or preferred to use for the writing courses they had taken. The first section of the questionnaire gave information about the purpose of the questionnaire and elicited background information on the participants age, gender, year of study, and university. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of 45 items in Persian developed on the basis of the subcategories of strategies highlighted by Oxford (1990) for each strategy

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type tapping into the participants use of memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective strategies in writing. A list of the questionnaire items related to each strategy is given below.
Table 2: Questionnaire Items Related to Each Strategy Strategy Type
Memory (MEM) Cognitive (COG) Compensation(COMP) Metacognitive (MET) Social (SOC) Affective (AFFEC)

Items
7, 10, 12, 26, 32, 41 5, 11, 14, 19, 24, 35, 40, 42 3, 38, 18, 29, 31, 34, 39 6, 9, 20, 22, 27, 28, 36, 38, 43 1, 14, 16, 21, 33, 37, 44 2, 13, 15, 17, 23, 25, 30, 45

Memory strategies in the questionnaire included memorizing new structures and expressions, reviewing these, creating a mental image, writing new words or expressions in sentences to better remember and use them in writing, and writing interesting language items on flash cards to better remember them. Cognitive strategies included practicing items from both L1 and English in writing, highlighting these items in texts for later use, reading more to develop writing, translating from Persian to English, analyzing the writings of more knowledgeable students, reviewing model readings, analyzing intractable grammatical or lexical structures, combining and using these structures in a new sentence, and using newly-learned words in writing. Compensation strategies included revising or editing, using circumlocution or synonyms, coining, selecting ones own writing topic, predicting what to write next, and using dictionaries while writing. Metacognitive strategies included contextualizing newly learned words or structures in different writing contexts, planning for writing, free-writing, learning writing skills, underlining errors, awareness of writing purpose, brainstorming and concentrating while writing, and preparing for the writing class. Social strategies included outside writing and communication in English, asking peers and professors about cultural-specific English expressions or idioms, seeking the feedback of instructors and more knowledgeable peers on writing, discussing writing problems, and gaining more information about the English culture. Affective strategies included keeping a diary to increase confidence, enjoying writing in English, rewarding oneself for writing a good piece, seeking a quiet writing environment, discussing ones feelings and frustrations with peers and others while writing, not being afraid of making errors, and viewing writing as a fun practice.

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To further complement the questionnaire findings, 16 participants were selected out of the 230 students who filled out the questionnaires and agreed to be interviewed. An equal number of participants (4) from each university were interviewed, with a total of eight from the first-year group (low proficiency) and the other eight from the final-year (high proficiency) group, including four males and four females in each group. The composition of the participants was the same for each university, i.e. one male and one female each from the first-year and the final-year students.

Procedure
The questionnaire items on writing strategies were developed on the basis of a review of the literature and with reference to Oxfords (1990) classification of language learning strategies. In the development stage, a group discussion was held with two of the researchers colleagues, which resulted in some modifications of items as to appropriacy, intelligibility, workability, and item classification. These items were in a statement form with a five-point Likert scale response format ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) seeking learners preference for the use of the six writing strategy types. An attempt was made to construct simple, clear, and specific (related to the participants specific writing course) statements phrased in a balanced and neutral manner (i.e. not suggesting a socially desirable answer). Then, the questionnaire was piloted with a group of ten participants similar to the target population. A summary sheet was used to note down the difficulties and misunderstandings about each statement in the questionnaire. Five items from the piloted draft of 50 items about which the students were vague or felt uneasy were removed. The revised final draft was given to university instructors to administer to their students. The respondents were briefed on how to answer the questionnaire. It was assigned one week after the students had taken their final writing exams. They were required to answer the questions with respect to the specific writing course they had taken so that they could answer the items with more confidence (Petric and Czarl, 2003). Thirty-five minutes was allocated to participants to complete the items. To gain more data on the range of strategies selected and other information that might be missing in the questionnaire, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Semi-structured interviews are commonly used to make up for the limitations of questionnaires (Brown and Dowling, 1999). The interviewees were briefed about the purpose of the interview, and the interview was conducted in a semi-structured format so that the participants were not restricted within the confines of the interviewers questions and could openly discuss the writing strategies they employed. Of course, this does not mean

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that semi-structured interviews have no structure. Rather, the researcher, as Brown and Dowling (1999) argue, has a hidden agenda which helps channel the interviews in the right direction. The interviews were conducted in Persian individually after the questionnaire data were collected. The interview length was limited to 12 to 15 minutes to keep it manageable. Initially, the interviewees were presented with a five-minute sample interview conducted and recorded in Persian by the researcher in which an alumnus of English literature was discussing his preferred writing strategies and how he approached his Essay Writing course assignments. The researcher asked about some strategies the learners related in their questionnaires which required further explanation. The respondents then reflected and elaborated on their choice of strategies and provided some further information, which proved to be of fundamental importance as a triangulating qualitative device. To steer the interviews in the right direction, the researcher employed some interviewing techniques, e.g. an interested silence, an appreciative comment, reflecting back or expressing doubt on what had been said, etc. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Each transcription was coded for ease of analysis and tracking of the points raised. The strategy types served as themes for content analysis and any substantive statement from the transcriptions touching on these themes was noted down, grouped into categories, and analyzed in further depth. Then, the typical responses across the transcriptions which stood out and were inclusive of the most repeated patterns or perceived strategies used by learners were analyzed and translated into English for reporting purposes. The translation was verbatim, and every attempt was made to preserve the content and form in the most faithful manner. Since the interviews were in Persian, there were very few instances of codeswitching, except for technical terms like email, internet, etc. The most common and frequent patterns of responses which supported the questionnaire data, as well as some other explanations and strategies pointed out by participants but not covered in the questionnaire, were highlighted. The primary data and the researchers interpretation are presented in the discussion section. Alternative perspectives and interpretations by readers may be equally valid since subjectivity is an inherent factor in qualitative data analysis (Holliday, 2002).

Results
The collected questionnaires were coded and the data were inserted into the SPSS Version 10 software for analyses and comparisons. Cronbachs Alpha showed that the instrument enjoys a high degree of internal consistency (0.87). To investigate the underlying constructs and validity of the questionnaire, factor analysis was also conducted to explain the variability in responses

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Table 3: The Rotated Component Matrix Factor Analysis Item Component

1 IT_1SOC IT_2AFEC IT_3COMP IT_4SOC IT_5COG IT_6MET IT_7MEM IT_8COMP IT_9MET IT_10MEM IT_11COG IT_12MEM IT_13AFEC IT_14COG IT_15AFEC IT_16SOC IT_17AFEC IT_18COMP IT_19COG IT_20MET IT_21SOC IT_22MET IT_23AFEC IT_24 COG IT_25AFEC IT_26MEM IT_27MET IT_28MET IT_29COMP IT_30AFEC IT_31COMP IT_32MEM IT_33SOC IT_34COMP IT_35COG IT_36MET IT_37SOC IT_38MET IT_39COMP IT_40COG IT_41MEM IT_42COG IT_43MET IT_44SOC IT_45AFEC 2 3 .45 .52 .48 .41 .48 .49 .46 .49 .68 .66 .53 .52 .37 .35 .42 .50 .40 .45 .50 .56 .58 .52 .46 .51 .53 .64 .49 .39 .36 .62 .49 .31 .61 .62 .48 .33 .60 .37 .56 .54 .60 4 5 6

Extraction Method: Principal Components analysis Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

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in terms of factors. Performing Principal Factor Analysis with Varimax rotation at item level, we identified six factors. Table 3 reveals a relatively clear pattern of loadings for the underlying constructs (writing strategy types) of the questionnaire. Factor loadings with absolute values of .30 or larger were considered for interpretation, and factors with Eigenvalues of less than 1 were excluded (Kinnear and Gray, 1999). The Eigenvalues for the six factors were 20.27, 14.63, 5.90, 3.32, 2.09, and 2.01, respectively, which show the proportion of variance explained by each factor. The six principal factors with Eigenvalues greater than 1 accounted for 48% of the total variance. This means that a little more than half of the variance cannot be explained by the six factors. Thus, other influences may make a difference in these learners strategy use. Levenes test for examining the homogeneity of the variances showed p-values of .42, .34, .46, .11, .39, and .19 for memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective strategies, respectively. This shows that the assumption of the homogeneity of variances among groups is observed. Descriptive statistics showed that the Iranian EFL undergraduates, in the main, prefer to use metacognitive and cognitive strategies more frequently than the other writing strategies. The least frequently used strategies are compensation and memory strategies.
Table 4: Descriptive Statistics for Each Writing Strategy Strategy
SOC MEM AFEC MET COMP COG

Mean
2.97 2.22 2.89 3.59 2.46 3.51

SD
.35 .43 .50 .55 .32 .55

Rank
3 6 4 1 5 2

To probe the second question of the study, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. Although ANOVA, when first created, was applied in experimental studies to test the effects of the treatment condition as compared with the non-treatment condition on a dependent variable, later ANOVA was applied to nonexperimental studies, e.g., for questionnaire analyses, for which it has been used for many years (Johnson, 2001; Kerlinger, 1986). The results of the MANOVA showed no significant differences (with significance level of .05) between low- and high-proficiency EFL undergraduate males and females in their use of each of the six major writing strategy types (see Table

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5). There was no significant interaction between year of study and gender in the use of each of these strategies, either.
Table 5: MANOVA for Each Strategy across Gender and Year of Study Source
Year

Dependent Variable
SOC MEM AFFEC MET COMP COG SOC MEM AFFEC MET COMP COG SOC MEM AFFEC MET COMP COG

F
.48 02 64 1.32 21 36 .17 009 07 3.13 54 57 .66 03 1.69 2.06 27 00

Sig.
.69 99 58 26 88 77 .67 92 78 07 46 44 .41 84 19 15 60 99

Gender

Year * Gender

The multivariate effect sizes for gender and year of study yielded Eta Squared values of .20 and .40, respectively, which show the extent to which the construed variances of the dependent variables could be accounted for through the independent variables of the study (i.e. gender and year of study). As for the third question of the study, the results in Table 6 show that students in both early and late years of study stated that they tended to use metacognitive strategies most frequently and memory strategies least frequently.
Table 6: Strategy Use by First-Year and Final-Year Undergraduate EFL Majors Year
1 2 Total Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

SOC
3.02 .38 2.93 .32 2.97 .35

MEM
2.24 .44 2.20 .43 2.22 .43

AFFECT
2.90 .46 2.88 .52 2.89 .50

MET
3.61 .55 3.57 .54 3.59 .55

COMP
2.49 .35 2.44 .31 2.46 .32

COG
3.56 .50 3.47 .58 3.51 .55

Note: 1= First-year, 2= Final-year

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Overall, both first-year and final-year participants utilized metacognitive and cognitive strategies most frequently to get their messages across, then social strategies to get feedback on what they transmit, followed by other strategies like affective, compensation, and memory strategies. To answer the fourth question of the study, the results showed that males and females tended to use metacognitive and cognitive strategies most frequently, and compensation and memory strategies least frequently (Table 7).
Table 7: Strategy Use by Male and Female Undergraduate EFL Majors Gender
1 2 Total Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

SOC
2.94 .40 2.98 .32 2.97 .35

MEM
2.22 .47 2.22 .42 2.22 .43

AFEC
2.95 .53 2.86 .48 2.89 .50

MET
3.67 .56 3.55 .54 3.59 .55

COMP
2.47 .31 2.46 .33 2.46 .32

COG
3.56 .55 3.49 .55 3.51 .55

Note: 1= males, 2= females

The interview results supporting each of the research questions of this study will be presented in discussing the results in the next section.

Discussion
The results demonstrated no significant differences in the frequency of writing strategies perceived to be used between first-year and final-year students. This finding is in contrast with the research in the literature, which claims academic experience to be an important variable in the selection of strategies (Oxford, 1990; Oxford and Nyikos, 1989; Nation, 2000). Nonetheless, it supports the literature in the sense that metacognitive strategies are the most frequently used strategies by learners (Gu and Johnson, 1996; Magogwe and Oliver, 2007; Oxford and Nyikos, 1989). Further, compensation and memory strategies were found to be used less often by the Iranian undergraduates, which is corroborative of the literature (Gu and Johnson, 1996; Yaghoubi, 2003). It is difficult to explain the resultant lack of statistically significant differences and why these less experienced Iranian learners make use of writing strategies with more or less the same frequency as their higher level counterparts. Both first-year and final-year learners had the same rank ordering of the six writing strategies, although the more advanced students were expected to use more writing strategies of one particular type or another. This implies that the perceived frequency of use of writing strategies may not be a reliable discrimi-

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nating feature between lower and higher level participants of this study. This finding lends support to the prior strategy research finding that the frequency of strategy use is not the whole picture, but appropriate use of strategies at the right time and in the best sequence is more important. Other factors such as aptitude, anxiety, world knowledge, educational and cultural experience, or even age (Magogwe and Oliver, 2007) may play a more significant role in the adoption of writing strategies. For instance, Yaghoubi (2003) found that the application of writing strategies with Iranian EFL learners was not sufficient to yield good writing, and that the degree of anxiety of the learners was a more important factor in predicting their writing quality. A likely interpretation of the nearly equal use of these strategies by the two year groups can be that the same strategies are considered by learners with the same shared goals as contributing significantly to writing. The homogeneity of the groups (both pursuing English as their major), and the effect of instruction particularly from a Language Study Skills course these participants took in their first year, can be significant factors. These two groups of learners shared goals can sensitize them to appeal to a particular repertoire of strategies and motivate them to be inclined to certain strategies more than others. From this perspective, the study results are similar to those of the Green and Oxford (1995) study, in which higher and lower course level participants used memory and cognitive strategies equally. The authors call these strategies bedrock strategies, the use of which is like the keystone that holds together the pieces of an arch whose strength derives from all its pieces and the way they are combined (Green and Oxford, 1995: 292). Yet it appears that these strategies are not by themselves sufficient to move the less experienced learners to higher proficiency levels. Further, the role of study skills instruction which the Iranian students receive as first-year students can affect their attitude towards writing. In the study skills course, they receive instruction on how to take notes, write memos and summaries, exploit technology in language learning and writing, and other hands-on language learning experiences which, though limited, can orient them towards having particular attitudes about language learning in general and second language writing in particular.

Interview Findings
Despite lack of statistically significant differences between students with different years of study and gender, interview results painted a somewhat different picture and highlighted some interesting findings on some of these strategies.

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Metacognitive Strategies As for metacognitive strategies, which were found to be the most frequently used strategies, students of both years and genders reiterated that they conducted little free-writing in their free time, and that they had problems writing in particular text genres. They referred to lack of time, difficulty, and traditional course requirements as reasons (the interviewees are designated by level (1,2), gender (M,F), and a lower case alphabetized letter to indicate individuals):

Writing in English in my free time is both time-consuming and arduous.

(First-year male, participant A; hereafter 1Ma)

We are not actually required to write much beyond the writing exercises in
our book. (Final-year female, participant B; hereafter 2Fb) Based on the researchers instructional experience, the Iranian universities formal context for teaching English writing at the undergraduate level may not essentially promote a free-writing culture among the students. The students are not encouraged to develop journals or keep diaries and share their writing with their peers. The large number of students in a writing class and the instructors time constraints and heavy teaching loads exacerbate this issue. Moreover, the traditional milieu of learning is based more on an oral culture than a written culture, i.e. the students are not trained adequately from early grades to do much writing, and in most English classes students get used to passively listening to lectures on writing models and doing simple end-of-chapter exercises. This practice, though convenient for students, surely does not lead to rewarding learning in general, nor to creative writing in particular. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is now changing rapidly, especially with the advent of computer technology, internet, and email communication. The participants found writing narratives or descriptions less demanding than writing argumentative texts:

Planning an argumentative essay takes a lot of my set time thinking of some

things. You know you need to think and take sides. (2Fc)

its more convenient to write about my experiences or describe my town or

an event. Then, I know more words and can write more.(1Md) Different writing purposes involve different levels of processing and writing strategies (Grabe, 2001), and development in the skills of writing and reading is affected by text genre (Carrell and Connor, 1991). The Iranian undergraduates need to be familiarized with different writing purposes and goals as well as the particular writing conventions and strategies they need to apply while writing in different genres and text types.

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Memory Strategies The questionnaire data for Research Question 1 showed that memory strategies have low usage. It seems that Iranian undergraduate EFL majors are not very familiar with or do not use mnemonic devices to improve their writing and to revise and contextualize novel vocabulary items or grammatical structures in their compositions. This finding is further corroborated through the interviews with participants of both genders and years of study:

I sometimes do write down some words I think helpful in writing on flash

cards but you know it is so hard to remember and use them while writing because of the enormity of the new expressions. (1Fe) forget to use them while writing and thus get frustrated at times. (2Mf)

I come across many new words and structures every week. So I almost always
Interviews with the final-year students also highlighted this point. A typical view by these participants is the following:

We really do not have enough time to review new words or syntactic struc-

tures we come across, especially new structures which are different from Persian are kind of hard to remember and use while writing so we just use them infrequently. (2Fg) As another final-year student admitted:

Well, I almost gave up using some new syntactic structures in my essays since

they oftentimes turned out to be wrongly used.Actually, I try to avoid using them or use them only when Im absolutely certain about them. (2Mh)

We can infer that undergraduate writers deficiency in linguistic competence keeps them from practicing more mnemonically-based writing strategies or varying lexico-grammatical aspects of writing for more efficient performance. Consequently, they resort to an avoidance strategy of not trying seriously to apply in their writing language forms or syntactic structures about whose application they are not certain. Compensation Strategies As for compensation strategies, the interview data confirm the questionnaire results. They are revealing especially with respect to coining, circumlocution, and avoidance strategies. The upper level students were inclined towards

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coining new phrases or expressions in cases when they did not remember the intended language forms. This is in contrast with the behavior of the lower level participants, i.e. they did not risk coining or rephrasing their intended meaning when their linguistic knowledge fell short:

I use only the words I knowand mainly try to write the language forms
Ive learned. (1Fi)

I try to use a synonym or simple writing if I do not remember a particular

form, but Im not so sure if they are the right words. (2Fj)

I feel at loss writing about things Im not interested in or things abstract to

me. Thus, I almost always avoid writing about them. (2Mk) Writing on unfamiliar or abstract topics seems to hinder the developmental writing performance of these writers. Their writing performance also suffers as a result of the unfamiliar task, which reduces the learners confidence and raises their anxiety, thus lowering their performance (Horwitz, 2000). In fact, Horwitz found that highly anxious students make fewer attempts to convey difficult messages in the target language. A compensatory strategy employed by females in the present study but not reflected in the questionnaire is neat writing. This strategic feature was not mentioned in the interviews with male students. Almost all of the female interviewees mentioned neat writing as one of the most important qualities in their writing:

I always have my correction fluid with me. (1Fe) My teacher and peers enjoy my neat writing, and tell me they like that. (2Fl) To tell you the truth, I believe one of the good things which get me some extra
marks is my neat and tidy paragraph writing. Some of my friends think it is not worth the trouble, but I dont think so. (2Fb) One has to wonder whether neat writing really does help to raise a students grade, and if so, why the males do not also adopt this strategy. Cognitive Strategies Some cognitive strategies highlighted in the interviews relate to translation and outlining. With regard to translation from Persian into English, some differences were found between the groups. Less experienced learners tended to use more translation, especially when planning or outlining before writing:

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Preparing the outline in Persian to write from helps to write with less chaos.
(1Fm)

Ill write some ideas in Persian on a slip of paper and try to include those
points as I write in English. (1Md) More advanced learners preferred to produce an outline or plan in English and to develop their ideas from that rather than starting from the mother tongue. Typical responses from the interviews with this group are the following:

I design a rough outline in English first and build up on that. This is great
especially while taking a writing exam. (2Fn)

Thinking in English helps me let my writings flow in English.also I draw a The use of these strategies support the point that both planning and translation using the learners first language may be helpful writing strategies related to individual and academic experience (Cohen and Brooks-Carson, 2001).

quick English outline on top of my paper. I learned this in my Study Skills course. (2Mo)

Affective Strategies Related to Research Question 4 of the study, interviews showed that most males preferred a silent environment for writing and believed it to be more conducive to a better performance. They also enjoyed written communication through email:

I can muster up my energy really more strongly when I am writing at home

in my study. (1Ma) I like that. (2Mo)

Now I encourage myself to send all my emails in English, and this is fantastic.
The interview results show that despite the lack of significant differences between males and females in their strategy use, learning styles, motivations, and attitudes that are typically associated with gender may play a more salient role than the gender factor itself in the selection of affective writing strategies. In fact, the use of affective strategies in language learning in general, and in writing in particular has been shown to be highly dependent on personality type and anxiety state of the learners (Ehrman and Oxford, 1989; Yaghoubi, 2003).

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Social Strategies As for social strategies, the interviews showed more information than covered in the questionnaire on the nature of the feedback and cultural understanding. Almost all of the interviewees emphasized that the feedback they get from their teachers is the most valuable to them. Low-level female writers had a stronger stated preference than their male counterparts to get feedback from their knowledgeable peers in addition to the teachers:

My friends English is great, so I ask him to correct my writings. (1Fe)

Another point raised by all learners about teacher feedback is that they had a hard time to figure out the teachers intended written feedback given in the form of ticks, marks, crosses, etc.:

he just ticks off the end of my paper, or sometimes he writes Good, or

excellent at the bottom. I get pleased. But I dont get much out of it myself know there are still some wrong points there. (2Mh) understand what they mean all over my text. (1Fm)

The crosses and the question marks drive me mad. I go to great pains to
The teachers written feedback needs to be informational rather than just simple and potentially confusing marks, i.e. it should increase students motivation towards certain aspects of the writing task and help them perform subsequent tasks with greater independence and confidence (Williams and Burden, 1997). Teachers written feedback has a mediatory function and will be considered helpful by the learner only when it generates a feeling of competence, confidence, individuality, and control. The feedback, given in any form, should identify to learners which aspects of their writing are acceptable and which aspects are capable of improvement, and thus help them develop towards the next stage or level of writing development. Further, Iranian female undergraduates turned out to be more interested than males in getting good grades. This can be a cultural issue, as the women are after social acceptance, family approval, and recognition of achievement, as we noticed in their interviews:

Getting an A is one of my goals in every piece of writing assignment. (1Fi) My good writings can tell everybody that I am strong academically. So, my
chances of employment increase. (2Fn)

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This is in line with the research findings by Ehrman and Oxford (1989) that females tend to show a greater orientation towards social interaction and conformity to conventional norms. This finding also shows the importance of instrumental motivation as a strong predictor of second language learning outcomes in addition to integrative motivation, which, as Bowen, Madsen, and Hilferty (1985) argue, depend on the environment in which language is learned, perceived target community support, and the learners attitude towards the target community. Finally, the undergraduate students emphasized the role of cultural understanding as an instrumental tool for writing development:

Reading novels really excite me into writing. I learn more about English
culture and impressed to use some of the unique cultural expressions in my writings. (2Fj) native-like. (1Md)

I think cultural understanding of a foreign language helps me write more

The interface between reading and writing and how reading about a foreign culture can foster writing in that language is highlighted here. Accordingly, foreign language readers can keep a journal or a portfolio of their readings whereby they can master some helpful and/or intractable features (cultural, grammatical, etc.) of the foreign language for their writing practices.

Limitations
One common problem with questionnaire data is that people may not be able to sufficiently monitor, recollect, and report on their writing behaviors and the results may be affected by the questionnaire methodology or simply be an artifact of it. Students may have tended to choose the mid-point on the rating scales because they could not distinguish easily or recollect well what their strategies really were. Thus, other more direct and situated forms of elicitation (e.g. think-aloud, immediate recall, or stimulated recall protocols) may provide more valid findings. We need to examine writing strategies with reference to more specific tasks, text types, and settings than with reference to the particular skill itself as done in this study. There are also different ways to conceptualize writing strategies. For instance, it is possible to investigate writing strategies in a process-approach by examining writing strategies used during pre-writing, writing, and postwriting. Further, the individual learners use of strategies and why they prefer more to use a particular strategy over others were not examined. Finally, the generalizability and application of the results are essentially constrained by the sample selected and thus must be treated with caution in other EFL contexts.

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Conclusion and Implications

Based on the quantitative data, one may question some literature on language learning strategies which claims that less experienced writers use writing strategies with less frequency than more experienced writers. However, interviews indicated that the two learner groups utilized somewhat different cognitive strategies (e.g. translation for the less advanced students vs. planning or outlining for the more advanced students) and compensation strategies (e.g. coining was more common among the upper level than the lower level students). There were also gender differences in the perceived use of affective and social strategies, with the males preferring to work alone in a quiet environment and the females being more interested in getting good grades. At the same time, almost all of the participants pointed out that they had had very little free-writing practice and had problems writing argumentative text types. Consequently, raising their awareness of the importance of expanding their writing skills in such areas is essential. In addition, they believed that reading in English can help them improve their writing quality. That writing strategies were used equally often by students in both years of study does not mean teachers can assume that all students are equally aware of these strategies because the individual strategy use will certainly be different from the overall group picture based on the statistical mean. Interacting with the learners on their writing strategies and offering them illustrative feedback on their writing can add to the academic quality and the social nature of the writing class. Any mismatch in a writing class between the teachers explicit correction and the learners needs and expectations has to be addressed in a constructive way so that the developmental composing process and the learners interlanguage can progress. With a goal of enhancing the learners productive skills and making them notice their weak or strong points in their written productions, teachers can provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their own progress and the contribution of particular strategies in doing multiple writing tasks. In this way, they can enhance the learners evaluation of themselves as learners and of their writing and by implication aid them to develop learner autonomy. The use or adoption of appropriate strategies or combinations of strategies allows learners to take more responsibility for their learning (Wharton, 2000). Consequently, it seems logical to teach students to use strategies through explicit instruction or feedback. Teachers can provide feedback to their students explicitly while they oversee their writing process in class. This practice can be helpful to both less proficient and more proficient learners since it provides somewhat individualized strategy training. Including strategy training and feedback on writing presupposes that teachers will have knowledge of strategies and

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how to teach them. Thus, an indirect implication of this study is for needed professional development for teachers to incorporate work on strategies in their classroom practice to assist their students writing and learning more generally. It appears that gender might not be as salient a factor as the learning styles, attitudes, and motivations that are typically associated with use of writing strategies. Nonetheless, it should be borne in mind that the findings of previous research regarding gender-related learning strategy differences are mainly based on general strategy use rather than on strategy use to manage specific language skills like writing. Moreover, recent research has shown that the participants disciplines can be a significant predictor of learning strategy adoption (Peacock and Ho, 2003). In Peacock and Hos study, English majors were the highest strategy users. It may be inferred that similar to this studys findings, we may discover homogeneous patterns of either high or low strategy use among students in specific disciplines in the Iranian context. This is however a matter of speculation which needs evidence through intradisciplinary strategy research on writing. In addition, research has shown that EFL learners use of strategies is different from that of the ESL learner or native speaker, and different from hybrid situations (Zhang, 2003). Therefore, to further validate the results of this study, future research would need to examine the use of specific strategies in different ESL, EFL, and native-speaker contexts. Appendix: The Writing Strategies Questionnaire Items (Translated from Persian)
1. I would like my professor to correct the errors in my paper. 2. I keep a diary on my writings to increase my confidence. 3. I revise and edit the text before submitting the paper. 4. I think gaining more information about English culture will help me write better. 5. I note down interesting and helpful sentences in texts and practice them in my writing for this course. 6. I keep and review my previous writings to find out how far I have progressed. 7. I review new structures I come across regularly so that I do not forget them and use them when writing. 8. I would like to select my own writing topic. 9. I consider learning how to write necessary to achieve my writing goals.

Undergraduate Iranian EFL Learners Use of Writing Strategies 10. I memorize interesting expressions so that I can use them in my writing.

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11. In my writings, I use similar structures in English and Persian with caution. 12. To memorize new words and use them in my writings, I try to create a mental image of the context in which the word is used. 13. I enjoy writing in English. 14. I highlight interesting and helpful sentences in texts to use them later in my writing. 15. I would like to discuss my feeling with others while writing. 16. While writing when I face a problem, I will ask my professor. 17. I reward myself when I write a good piece. 18. In my reports, I coin a new word or explain it if I do not remember the exact word. 19. I try to read more in English so that I can pick up the English way of writing. 20. Before writing class, I prepare myself for the class. 21. I ask my friends and professors about cultural idioms and expressions. 22. I highlight or underline my errors to work on them more. 23. I would like writing to be fun. 24. I translate interesting sentences from Persian into English to use them in my writing. 25. Before writing, the writing environment must be quiet. 26. Using words and structures in their meaningful writing context helps me learn better. 27. I should focus on my work while writing. 28. I will write anything which comes to my mind first and then edit it. 29. I use synonyms if I do not remember the exact word. 30. I encourage myself to write in English and thus am not afraid of making errors. 31. I use a similar word or close to that word if I do not remember the exact word. 32. I jot down the necessary and helpful words and expressions on flash cards. 33. I would like more knowledgeable students to express their opinion on my paper. 34. I try to predict what to write next while writing.

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35. My review of the writings of good students and good texts has been effective in improving my writing. 36. I can write better when I am aware of the purpose of the writing task. 37. I try to use phrases or expressions particular to the English language and culture. 38. I write on some topics and practice even when I have no writing assignment. 39. I use an English-English or a Persian-English dictionary while writing. 40. I try to use my knowledge to analyze English structures if I am not sure about using them. 41. I write new words and expressions in sentences to remember them. 42. I find combining previously-learned words and structures effective for making new sentences in writing. 43. In my writings, I try to use the words I have learned in different contexts and conditions. 44. My outside reading and communication in English has helped me write English in a better manner. 45. I talk to my friends about how I feel or how they feel when writing in English.

Acknowledgement
I should thank the editor, Professor Martha Pennington, for her insightful comments and questions; Dr. Hasanabadi, a colleague at Shahid Beheshti University, for his assistance on the statistical parts of the research; and the three anonymous reviewers of Writing and Pedagogy, for their meticulous reading of and commenting on this paper. Nonetheless, any remaining errors are mine.

About the Author

Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and TEFL. He is an Assistant Professor at the English Department of Iran University of Science and Technology, where he teaches academic writing, ESP, psycholinguistics, and discourse analysis. He has been teaching English for 12 years and published nationally and internationally on issues in writing, reading-writing interface, intercultural pragmatics and ESP, and task-based language teaching.

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