Coupling text structure and self-regulated strategy instruction for ESL primary school students’ writing outcomes

Abstract

Enlightened by the implied potential of coupling text structure knowledge and self-regulated strategies to enhance writing, this study explored the possible effects of a onemonth multicomponent intervention combining text structure with self-regulation training on writing. Target participants consisted of 178 primary school sixth-grade students learning English as a second language (ESL). Among them, 45 students received text structure instruction plus self-regulation strategy development (TSI+SRSD), 45 received text structure instruction only (TSI), 45 received SRSD only, and 43 were in a control group. Dependent variables were learners’ abilities to summarize main ideas and write essays. As expected, TSI instruction or SRSD instruction resulted in better writing outcomes (i.e., summarizing main ideas and writing essays). This study contributes to research on self-regulated writing development by providing evidence that the TSI+SRSD intervention was particularly effective in enhancing primary school ESL students’ abilities to summarize main ideas and write essays. This instructional approach seems promising in ameliorating ESL young learners’ writing ability and minimizing struggling writers’ compositional difficulties. Relevant implications for language education are also discussed.