On the Effectiveness of Question to Write and Brainstorm to Write on Advanced EFL Learners Writing Performance and Metacognitive Strategy Instruction

Writing as one of important skills among language learning skills has different skills that pre-writing is one of them. Pre-writing is defined as a “getting ready to write” stage (Cohen Cowen, 2010). The present study aimed at investigating the effect of question to write and brainstorm to write as two pre-writing activities on EFL learners writing performance. It also investigated the possible effect of the two pre-writing activities on EFL learners metacognitive strategy instruction. To this end, 80 Iranian EFL intermediate learners were selected and took part in a quasi-experimental study and their performance on writing pretest and posttest as well as on metacognitive scale were taken into account. The finding revealed that the instruction of brainstorm strategy had a positive effect on EFL learners’ writing performance in comparison with question to write group and no pre-writing group or control group. The results also indicated that there is no significant difference in in the metacognitive strategy instruction of students who are exposed to different pre-writing activities. Based on the conclusions, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were suggested.