A Proposal for a Taxonomy of ESL Writing Strategies

After reading Congjun Mu's "A Proposal for a Taxonomy of ESL Writing Strategies", I share Mu's position that research strategies are

"based on individuals and individual reports [so] they are sometimes completely different."

Therefore, we sometimes find the ideas, classifications, and categories listed in these researchers' theories to be difficult to put into practice in the ESL teaching process.


His goal in conducting the study was to build a basic frame for the classification of ESL writing strategies. He divided them into five main branches: communicative strategies, rhetorical strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies. I believe that this is the most organized and concise division that has been presented, despite the limitations he himself established. It may, however, then lead to other studies and new perspectives from other researchers that can be more relevant when put into practice.