Abstract:

The Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis [1]–[3] assumes that when academic language skills are successfully acquired in L1, they can be positively transferred during L2 learning process. While the transfer of linguistic skills from L1 to L2 has received considerable attention, little research has been conducted on the reverse transfer of skills. This study investigated the effects of a two-month intervention aimed to improve second-year (K12) students’ metacognitive awareness of writing strategies in English (L3) on the use of similar strategies in French (L2) and Standard Arabic (L1). 60 twelfth-grade students (26 males and 34 females) were conveniently selected from a public high school and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n=30) and a control group (n=30). All participants were asked (i) to write an academic essay in English, French and Arabic and (ii) were administered the Arabic version of the Questionnaire on Language Learners’ Metacognitive Writing Strategies in Multimedia Environments (LLMWSIME) [4] to measure their metacognitive awareness of writing strategies in Arabic, French, and English before and after the intervention. Only the experimental group received training in metacognitive writing strategies in English. The difference between metacognitive writing strategies levels before and after the intervention was examined using one-way-MANOVA. Results revealed a significant improvement in the experimental group’s metacognitive writing strategies awareness after intervention. We call for a multilingual and collaborative approach to writing pedagogy, where a link among the different languages that tri/bilingual learners study should be established so that acquired language strategies in a given language can transfer from one language to another.

References:
[1] Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222–251.
https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543049002222
[2] Cummins, J. (1981). Empirical and theoretical underpinnings of bilingual education. Journal of Education, 163(1), 16–29.
[3] Cummins, J. (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 221–240.
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.661937
[4] Zhang, L. J., & Qin, T. L. (2018). Validating a questionnaire on EFL writers’ metacognitive awareness of writing strategies in multimedia environments. In
Metacognition in language learning and teaching (pp. 157-178). Routledge.

Keywords:

Cross-language transfer, (meta-)cognitive writing strategies, academic writing, intervention, trilingual learners.