Why Some MFL Students Are Better at Monitoring Their Writing: A Research-Informed Guide for Teachers

In 2004 I completed my PhD investigation of L2 students Self-monitoring habits as essay writers. One of the most striking differences I observed during my study was that while some learners instinctively spot and fix their errors as they write, others barely notice a mistake even when it stares them in the face. Why is that? Why do some learners consistently revise, self-correct, and refine, while others either can’t or won’t? In this article, I explore what the research says about the cognitive and affective factors that affect learners’ ability to monitor their own output during writing. In a follow-up post I will explore the implications for teaching self-monitoring skills with specific reference to A2-B1 L2 learners (GCSE level in England).

What Makes Some Learners Better Self-Monitors? Key Research Insights

Working Memory Capacity Learners with greater working memory can retain and manipulate multiple elements at once — such as subject-verb agreement, spelling accuracy, and word order. This supports real-time monitoring. Studies by Miyake & Friedman (1998) and Robinson (2002) show that working memory correlates strongly with writing fluency and grammatical accuracy in L2 learners.

Metalinguistic Awareness Metalinguistic awareness refers to a learner’s ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language. Roehr-Brackin (2018) found that learners with high metalinguistic ability are significantly better at identifying and correcting errors. Ellis (2004) also links it to increased success in rule-based tasks.

L2 Proficiency Level Beginners often struggle with output monitoring simply because their cognitive resources are consumed by word retrieval and syntactic construction. Ortega (2009) and Kormos (2012) argue that fluency allows learners to ‘free up’ mental space for revision.

Motivation and Attitude Learners who are more motivated to improve often engage more deeply in self-regulation, including self-monitoring. Dörnyei (2001) and Ushioda (2011) highlight the strong link between motivation and strategy use, especially in revision. Learners with a growth mindset are more likely to see error correction as a path to mastery rather than failure.

Strategy Use and Training Proficient self-monitors employ specific strategies: rereading, pausing to plan, and rephrasing. Research by Graham & Harris (2005) and Oxford (1990) confirms that explicit strategy instruction significantly improves writing outcomes

Can self-monitoring be taught?: What the Research Says About Monitoring Strategy Training

Over the past two decades, a growing body of research has highlighted the potential of explicit strategy training to improve learners’ ability to monitor their output in second language writing. While early SLA research focused largely on input, more recent studies have turned their attention to metacognition — particularly the kinds of strategies learners can be taught to deploy during written production.

One of the earliest and most cited contributions comes from Graham and Harris (2005), who developed a Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model for writing. Their research, primarily with L1 learners but extended to L2 contexts, showed that when students were taught to plan, monitor, evaluate, and revise their writing using checklists and self-talk routines, their writing quality significantly improved.

In L2-specific contexts, Manchón and Roca de Larios (2007) investigated how learners approach self-monitoring during composition and found that students often do not spontaneously engage in rereading or revision unless explicitly taught to do so. Their study called for more structured integration of strategy instruction in writing curricula.

Schoonen et al. (2003) conducted research on L1 and L2 writers and found that cognitive fluency (speed and ease of lexical and syntactic retrieval) is a predictor of successful monitoring behaviour. Their findings imply that strategy instruction needs to be paired with fluency-building activities.

Sasaki (2000) carried out a longitudinal study of Japanese EFL learners and demonstrated that explicit instruction in writing strategies, including self-monitoring and planning, had a long-term positive impact on both writing fluency and grammatical accuracy.

More recently, Fernandez Dobao (2012) examined peer feedback as a scaffold for self-monitoring and found that learners who engaged in structured peer-review tasks were better able to internalise error detection strategies and apply them independently.

Lastly, Conti (2001) proposed a principled framework for teaching self-monitoring in L2 classrooms which included the following features:

(a) Enhancement of learner error-related metacognition

(b) A long-term process of self-monitoring

(c) Modelling of and extensive practice in the use of effective self-correction / editing strategies

(d) Personalisaton of error treatment

(e) Focus on the process rather than the product of writing and learning in general

(f) Synergistic use of various forms of EC

Like many other Explicit Strategy Training programmes his training consisted of the following phases (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990; Cohen, 1998; Macaro, 2001):

(1) Pre-test needs assessment: The learners’ needs are assessed, usually through a combination of different instruments (e.g. questionnaires, interviews, think-aloud protocols and other forms of self-reports) in order to strengthen the validity of the data.

(2) Introductory phase: The rationale for the training is given and the target strategies are presented and modelled.

(3) Scaffolding phase: The learners receive extensive practice in the target strategies with the help of “scaffolding”, i.e., activities and materials which remind and encourage the learners to apply the target strategies.

(4) Autonomous phase: The learners are left to their own devices without any intervention on the part of the teacher.

(5) Evaluative phase: The learners’ use of the target strategies and their impact on their performance are verified. Normally the same diagnostic instruments used at pre-test are re-deployed here.

Conclusion: Monitoring Is Learnable

Self-monitoring isn’t a fixed trait. It emerges from a complex interplay of cognitive factors (like working memory), affective factors (like motivation), and educational experiences (like strategy training and task design). Every learner can get better at it, but only if we teach it. Our job as MFL teachers is not to expect self-monitoring as a by-product of instruction, but to teach it as a skill in its own right. With time, modelling, and structured reflection — much like the strategies outlined in Conti (2001) — we can nurture that quiet, internal editor that turns output into real learning.

References

• Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Pearson Education.
• Ellis, R. (2004). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fernandez Dobao, A. (2012). Collaborative writing tasks in the L2 classroom: Comparing group, pair, and individual work. Journal of Second Language Writing, 21(1), 40–58.
• Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2005). Improving the writing performance of young struggling writers: The Self-Regulated Strategy Development model. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(1), 19–27.
• Grabe, W., & Zhang, C. (2013). Reading and writing together: A critical component of English for academic purposes teaching and learning. TESOL Journal, 4(1), 9–24.
• Kormos, J. (2012). The role of individual differences in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 21(4), 390–403.
• Manchón, R. M., & Roca de Larios, J. (2007). Writing-to-learn in instructed language learning contexts. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(4), 225–250.
• Miyake, A., & Friedman, N. P. (1998). Individual differences in second language proficiency: Working memory as language aptitude. In A. F. Healy & L. E. Bourne Jr. (Eds.), Foreign Language Learning: Psycholinguistic Studies on Training and Retention (pp. 339–364). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. London: Hodder Education.
• Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. New York: Newbury House.
• Sasaki, M. (2000). Toward an empirical model of EFL writing processes: An exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(3), 259–291.
• Schoonen, R., van Gelderen, A., de Glopper, K., Hulstijn, J., Simis, A., Snellings, P., & Stevenson, M. (2003). First language and second language writing: The role of linguistic knowledge, speed of processing, and metacognitive knowledge. Language Learning, 53(1), 165–202.