Chapter One Introduction

1.1ResearchBackground
Among the five basic skills in language learning, writing is the most important anddifficult, for it demonstrates a person’s comprehensive ability in using a language andexpressing ideas. Writing can be challenging either in one’s native language or in the secondlanguage (Peyton, 1993). So writing has been attracting considerable attention from researchersbothat homeand abroad.For learners, especially college students, writing is an indispensable skill to acquire insecond language learning. College students are exposed to a variety of examinations, in most ofwhich writing task is a necessary and integral part, such as in CET4, CET6. According toCollege English Curriculum Requirements (2007)2, the basic requirements for writing are “towrite within 30 minutes a short composition of no less than 120 words on a general topic, or anoutline. The composition should be basically complete in content, clear in main idea,appropriate in diction and coherent in discourse. Students are expected to have a command ofnecessarywriting skills.”In CET4, the writing takes up 15% of the total score. However, the result of the writingscore is far from satisfactory. In June 1993, the average score throughout the nation is 6.8, whilein June 2001, the average score in the whole nation is 7.7; until now the average score is stillratherlow. For theprivatecolleges likeNingbo DahongyingCollege, theaverage scoreis lower;thepassing ratio ofCET4 forGrade2010 non-Englishmajoris about40%.
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1.2ResearchMotivation
College English writing teaching has been appealing to many researchers and variousteaching methods have been used which intend to teach English writing more effectively.However, no satisfying method has been found so far. Since the 1970s, the research focus of L2teaching and learning has shifted from teachers’ teaching to learners’ learning. The learners’individual characteristics and their impacts on the process of L2 acquisition have been valuedhighly. Many researchers have realized that researching the teaching methods alone cannotincludeall the elements concerned (Stern, 1983). Great importance has been attached to learnersthemselveswhentheresearchofL2 acquisition isconducted.In recent years, researchers both at home and abroad have conducted various studies toanalyze the learners’ individual differences and their influences on L2 acquisition. Scholars athome have done the research of Chinese English learners’ individual differences on theirprocess of L2 acquisition, and have made the conclusion that individual differences such asgender, learning ability, thinking style will have an impact on learner’s L2 acquisition (Guo,2007; Su, 2011; Yan, 2010; Zhou & Zhang, 1996). Scholars abroad have testified that thelearners’ intelligence and language aptitude will influence the effect of L2 acquisition (Ellis,1994;Hulstijn, 2005;Skehan, 1998).
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1ESLWriting
According to Neufeld (1985), writing is a kind of activity that the thought is transformedinto a visual form. In other words, writing is a visual expression of ideas. Writing is the processof taking an idea from the inside of one person’s brain and putting it into a code so that it can beshared by others. Peyton (1993) defined writing as a continuous process of discovering how tofind the most effective language to commute one’s feelings and thoughts. Sperling (1996)viewed writing as a meaning-making activity that is culturally and socially shaped andindividuallyand sociallypurposeful.Similar to the definition of writing, though different researchers pay attention to the writingskills, the topic of whether the writing skill is a single unitary ability or it consists of distinctcomponent traits has seldom been discussed clearly. Writing skill is one of the mostcomplicated skills which are tough for teachers to teach. It requires the learner to master bothgrammatical rules and conceptual components. However, from the discussion of the definitionof writing, it is clear to make such a conclusion that the writing skill contains far more than oneelement.Heaton (2000, pp.105-135) concludes the writing skill from the following five areas: thefirst is language use, which refers to the skill to make sentence correctly. The second ismechanical skills, which mainly refers to the skill to appropriately apply the languageconventions in writing. The third is the skill to treat content appropriately which is thecompetenceto develop ideas without any information which is unrelated to the topic. The fourthis stylistic skills, namely, the competence to write the essay in an appropriate style. The lastaspectistheability toorganizeandorderrelevant elements.
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2.2Individual Learner Differences in SLA
It is essential to make a clear idea of SLA before the discussion of individual learnerdifferences. SLA refers to the process of learning language in addition to the native language. Itis widely acknowledged that there is a close relationship between second language and nativelanguage. SLA should be distinguished from foreign language learning that is mainly learntonlyinschools. The languagewhich islearned in SLAisdefined as L2 ortarget language.The term “Individual Differences”, which is originated from psychology, refers to therelatively stable and different physiological and psychological features of human beings in theprocess of a series of mental activities such as recognition, emotion and will, etc. (Zhu, 1989)3.While in SLA, the term “individual learner differences” mainly means the differences in theprocess of the learner learning an L2, such as differences in how they learn it, and howsuccessful they are. Since the 1950s, the functions of individual learner differences have beenappealed to various scholars (Ellis, 1989, 1994; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Skehan, 1989).They have done the research in this field and made the great achievement. The research onindividuallearnerdifferenceshasbeen oneoftheresearch focuses inSLA.
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ChapterThree Methodology..........11
3.1 Purpose........11
3.2 Design........11
3.3 ResearchQuestions........11
3.4 Subjects........12
3.5 Instrument........12
3.6 Scoring and DataAnalysis........13
ChapterFour Resultsand Discussion ........15
4.1Differences of Writing Proficiencyamong Non-English Majors........15
4.2 Differences in Lexical Accuracy........18
4.3 Differences in Syntactic Accuracy........23
4.4 CausesoftheDifferences........27
4.5 Summary........15
Chapter Five Conclusion........ 31
5.1 MajorFindings........ 31
5.2 Implications of the Study ........32
5.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Further Studies........ 34

Chapter Four Results and Discussion

4.1DifferencesofWritingProficiencyamongNon-EnglishMajors
The first research question is that: Whether there are some differences of writingproficiency among non-English majors by the influence of the two individual factors: Genderand L2 proficiency? Aiming to answer the first question, the following two sub-questions willbe answered respectively: First, whether there are differences of writing proficiency betweenhigh and low L2 proficiency students? Second, whether there are differences of writingproficiency between male and female students? Now we are going to discuss these twoquestionsrespectivelyIn order to investigate the influence of the two factors -- gender and L2 proficiency onwriting proficiency, the author used Univariate Analysis of Variance to compare the writingscores of the four groups. Here, the dependent variable is writing score, and the two fixedfactorsaregenderandL2 proficiency. Theresults wereshowed inTable4.1 andTable4.2.

Conclusion

The main purpose of this study is to analyze non-English major students’ individualdifferences in their writings in private colleges, and intend to find out the differences ofwriting proficiency among the high and low L2 proficiency students, female and malestudents. Themajorfindingsofthecurrentstudy canbesummarized as follows:First, the results revealed that the individual factors of gender and L2 proficiency willinfluence the learners’ writing proficiency. There are great individual differences in writingproficiency among non-English majors. The results of the writing tests have shown that thestudents in high L2 proficiency group acquire higher average scores of writing than those in lowL2 proficiency group. And the results of the writing test also confirm that female studentsperform better in their writings than male students, for the mean score of female students ismuchhigherthan malestudents.Second, the difference in writing proficiency is reflected by lexical accuracy in students’writings. The results of the analysis of the lexical errors in sample writings have indicated thatthe quantity of lexical errors in low L2 proficiency group outnumbers that in high L2proficiency group. And the average number of error in lexicon in female group is much lessthan that in male group. To be specific, high L2 proficiency group does much better than lowL2 proficiency group in the following specific aspects in terms of lexical accuracy: Spelling, useof articles, collocations. Female students outdo male students in the aspect of part of speech andcollocation.
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