INVESTIGATING STUDENTES’ AWARENESS AND USE 0F WRITING STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF GRADE 10 MARIAM SEFER SECONDARY SCHOOL

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate grade 10 students’ writing strategies awareness and strategyuse at Mariam Sefer Secondary School. To succeedthe planned objectives of the study descriptive research design was employed to response each research question. Theparticipants of this study were grade 10 students and English teachers and chosen from the proposed school. Simple random sampling andpurposive sampling techniques were used to select representatives for the population of this study.Questionnaires, writing task based self-reflection and semi structured interview were used to gatheressential data. The collected data were analyzed and discussed quantitatively and qualitatively. Of 365students,six students for student interview, three students for teacher interview and 73 students for both questionnaire and writing task based self-reflection were participated. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively using some statistical measurement such as frequency and mean score, whereas, the data gained from task based self-reflection and interview were first coded and classified in their similarity, and grouping into writing strategiescategory. Regarding the overall writing strategies use, the finding of the study demonstrated that students used writing strategy in a medium level. Of the strategy category in a macro level, metacognitive writing strategy was the firststudents’ preference .Next to this, the pupils revealed some socio affective strategy. The study also found that studenthad less writing strategy awareness .Their writing awareness was closely tied with their writing strategy use. This implied that students who are aware of more writing strategy may have the opportunity to use more strategies in their writing activities. Students and teachers related problem were the main issues for the less awareness and a lesser amount of strategiesuse tostudents writingtask. To diminish the problem,a set of recommendation were recommended to students and English teachers.