Strategies for the construction of meaning: Chinese students in Singapore writing in English and Chinese

Abstract

The paper examines performance in written English and Chinese in a sample of Singapore students (N = 43). Students had to write essays in both languages and were invited to think aloud while doing so. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the protocols are presented. They show that both effective and ineffective writers use meaning-constructing strategies in their writing, but they differ in the quality of this use. Those who have developed good meaning constructing strategies in their stronger language seem to be able to transfer these strategies to their weaker language. However, their transfer seems to be more apparent if the stronger language is English. The implications of the findings for the Singapore classroom are discussed.