A Study on Writing Strategies used by Students of Different Levels of Proficiency at A University in Vietnam

The primary purpose of the study was to measure the use of writing strategies of participants. The secondary purpose aims at finding out strategies mostly used by high level of proficiency students compared those of level of proficiency at different stages of writing, namely before, during and after the writing assignment. The study was conducted among 137 English majored students. The findings reveal that before writing high proficiency students used strategies more often than the other two groups, namely medium and low levels of proficiency. The mean of before writing strategies uses were M=3.48; M=2.30; M=1.98 respectively. The mean of during writing strategies uses were M=3.36; M=3.03; M=2.57 respectively. The mean of after writing strategies uses were M=3.55; M=1.99; M=2.06 respectively. Among the group of Before Writing Strategy (BWS), Students with high proficiency level often discuss what they were going to write with other students or with teacher before they write (M=3.86). The figure for low level of proficiency students was M=1.50. The high level students also do extra study outside the classroom to improve his/her writing (M=3.86), while the low level students was M= 1.32. The high level students reported that they think of the relationships between what they already know and new things that they learn (M=3.71). The use of this strategy for low level students were only M=1.68. Among the group of During Writing Strategy (DWS), students with low proficiency use native language first and then translate it into English most often (M= 3.86). The high proficiency students did not use this strategy while writing (M=1.57). The low proficiency students also reported that they used dictionary a lot when they write (M=3.25), the figure for high proficiency students was only M=1.29). Another strategy that was employed by most low level students was “I use a grammar book to check things I am not sure about when I write” (M=3.97) while the high level students used this strategy at low frequency (M= 1.29). Among the group of After Writing Strategy (AWS), students with high proficiency reported that they often go back to his/her writing to edit the grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. (M=3.81) compared with M=2.80 of low proficiency students. High proficiency students also often record the types of errors he/she has made so he/she does not keep making the same (M=3.80), while the figure for low proficiency students were M= 1.20.