Language Teaching Research Quarterly

Inspired by Rebecca Oxford's thought-provoking reflections on language learning strategies, and particularly her orchestra metaphor on how the strategies work together, I conducted a study that seeks to understand how non-native writers employ, configure, sequence and combine individual writing strategies when creating a text in the target language. Four dyads of undergraduate students of English were video-recorded while jointly writing an argumentative essay. The transcripts were analyzed using a general inductive approach to uncover writing strategies emerging in the writing process and to explore how individual strategies are coordinated in task completion. The most important finding is that writers do not randomly sequence the strategies, but they orchestrate them to attain the desired goal. Metaphorically, learners combine writing strategies into 'symphonies of strategies', mirroring the way different instruments of an orchestra create music.