The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies on Field-dependent and Independent Learners’ Writing

摘要

The current study aimed at investigating the effect of metacognitive strategy instruction on the writing performance of field-dependent and field-independent intermediate learners. To fulfill the purpose of this study, 62 male and female intermediate EFL learners with the age range of 18-35 were selected as homogeneous learners and were given Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) in order to be characterized as either field-dependent or field-independent. Then, they were divided into two groups of experimental and control and both took a pretest of writing. The experimental group received metacognitive strategy training, while the control group received the usual teaching program of the language school. At the end of the training, a writing post-test was administered to both groups. The results revealed that the experimental group did statistically better in their post-test. Moreover field-independent learners outperformed field-dependent ones in their post-test. The findings draw attention to the benefits of teaching strategies especially when dealing with writing courses.