Abstract

• This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of strategy instruction on pre-service teachers' academic writing skills and self-regulation abilities. The data were collected through learners’ essays, reflections and questionnaires which were used as pretest and posttest. This research was carried out in a classroom of 48 students for four weeks. Students were given self-regulation strategy instruction and modeling, and then assigned academic writing tasks. The strategy they used in their writing tasks was investigated through a questionnaire, their mini-assignments and reflections. Students’ errors and difficulties were the key focus and their opinions were taken through focus group discussions. The results showed that self-regulated learning strategy training could help students improve their writing skills but further instructions and feedbacks were needed as they used a small number of strategies and only a slight improvement was seen in their writing skills, significantly, in such strategies as receiving relevant information (from mean value 33 to 36), searching for options (from mean value 33 to 37), formulating a plan (from mean value 27 to 32), implementing the plan (from mean value 31 to 35) and assessing the plan's effectiveness (from mean value 32 to 35). Though this study was a small scale research, it illuminated that self-regulated learning strategies are part of 21st century learning.