Promoting Cognitive Strategies in Second Language Writing

Abstract

Purpose: Polytechnic students lack basic skills,especially the writing skill essential for theiremployment. They find it difficult to write emails,reports, and other technical documents required attheir workplace. Although there are studies toinvestigate this skill-gap, there is little research toexplore the possibilities for enhancing their writingskill. Hence, this study focuses on enhancing thewriting skill of the polytechnic students. This studyaims to employ cognitive strategies to guide themental operations entailed in performing a writingtask. The paper delineates the experimental studyemploying cognitive strategies to foster the writingproficiency of the students. Research Methods: 51 pre-final year diploma students belonging to the Department ofInstrumentation and Control Engineering of the autonomous polytechnic institute in TamilNadu was chosen as the samples for this study. The teacher-researcher imparted cognitivestrategies to the students and has invigorated them to employ it in their writing tasksadministered in a graded structure during the course.Findings: The findings of the study established a strong correlation between students’cognitive strategy use and their writing. The results corroborated improvement in thestudents’ writing skill expedited by the employment of cognitive strategies in their writingtasks.Implications for Research and Practice: The findings obtained in this study suggest thenecessity of integrating cognitive strategies in the writing skill of the ESL learners inaccordance with the workplace demands of adequate proficiency in writing skills of theemployees creating a desideratum for the polytechnic students to enhance proficiency in theirwriting.