translate the following paragraphs into Chinese .      The importance of writing to student achievement in school, at home, and in the workplace has
given rise to the proliferation of research on writing in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context (Lee, 2016; Ortega, 2009). However, teaching how to write and learning to write in a foreign language seem to be very challenging for both language teachers and learners (Silva & Matsuda,2010). This challenge is especially prominent in primary and secondary schools, where students experience a critical, complex process of knowledge construction (Matsuda & Silva, 2005). 
As Leki et al. (2008) observed, teaching second language (L2) writing is a complex issue in schools. Adolescents are generally sensitive to experiences that influence their identity formation, but
they have not yet developed sufficient literacy to manage standardised English tests, or reliable
means of manoeuvring in the social world, as older learners may have. This complex issue might
further influence adolescent students’ experiences and perceptions of learning L2 writing (Ortmeier-Hooper & Enright, 2011). Besides, L2 writing instruction in lower grades plays a dual role: that of developing students’ writing skills (learning to write) and equipping them with literacy that enables them to explore new knowledge necessary for academic success (writing to learn). This requirement for the teaching of writing generates challenges for instructors, who are expected to apply appropriate pedagogies in a way that enhances students’ L2 writing and overall development.
However, prior EFL writing research has predominantly focused on higher education settings, 
largely neglecting the importance of and distinguishing features of writing in primary and secondary schools (Lee, 2016; Ortega, 2009). Harklau (2002) and Ellis (1994) explicitly stated that L2 acquisition research could benefit from a more in-depth study of L2 writing and literacy development, especially among young writers in primary and secondary schools, where literacy is an essential modality for communicating subject matter. The current research therefore synthesised empirical studies of the teaching and learning of EFL writing amongst young learners. We focused on three themes: contexts and participants, research foci and theoretical orientations, and research methodology and data sources. This thematic review enhances our understanding of what has been investigated in EFL writing research on younger learners, in terms of its content and methods, thereby generating insightful directions for research on EFL writing in primary and secondary schools.

Previous Reviews 
Research on EFL writing in school contexts originated mainly in fifirst language (L1) early literacy 
development (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Kress, 1994) and bilingual education research (Valdés, 1992). However, research on younger learners’ English literacy has predominantly focused on the development of reading skills, rather than on writing, which in fact constitutes a fundamental component of students’ literacy in primary and secondary schools (Lee, 2016). Although scholarship exploring various EFL writing pedagogies in schools has expanded in recent years, it still generally represents a small proportion of the research on EFL writing. There have been even fewer attempts to systematically map the research terrain of EFL writing in schools. Several studies (e.g., Leki et al., 2008; Ortega, 2009; Riazi et al., 2018; Zheng & Yu, 2019) have touched upon EFL writing in primary and secondary school contexts, but have not been dedicated to this issue. An important example is a review by Ortega (2009), who rightly concluded that most research has focused on EFL college writers, while knowledge about younger EFL writers is scarce. Ortega’s (2009) review also highlighted the fact that in countries with a predominantly test-oriented educational landscape (e.g., China), the majority of K-12 (i.e., kindergarten, primary, and secondary education) research has focused on students’ writing performance on standardised English tests. This is partly due to the practical difficulties associated with collecting data from young EFL learners. Besides, the dominance of a product-oriented approach in such settings leads EFL teachers to focus more on the performance rather than the process of students’ writing. This indicates a need to examine the broader scope of EFL writing in such contexts.

Another research synthesis was produced by Lee (2016), based on articles published between
1992 and 2011 in key journals on writing research. This review traced an obvious increase in number of articles published since 2000 and thematised five research foci of EFL writing in schools: students, student texts, teaching and learning, assessment and feedback, and writing teacher development. Four important findings from Lee’s review should be noted. First, EFL students in grade 7 or above were the most frequently investigated participants, and their written texts, including lexical, grammatical, and discourse features, were studied to infer the characteristics of EFL students’ writing at different proficiency levels. Second, most of the reviewed research was classroombased, and both case study and mixed methods approaches were widely adopted in the EFL writing classroom to track the writing process and factors affecting student writing performance such as writing motivation. Third, facilitated by the process-oriented approach, an important line of the reviewed research focused on language assessment and feedback in EFL writing in school contexts,using various psychometric instruments and experimental designs to investigate aspects of error correction. Finally, there were few studies of writing teacher development, and little was found concerning the design of teacher education programmes, teachers’ language assessment literacy, or their preparedness to integrate technology into writing instruction. Despite its significance in drawing our attention to EFL writing research in the lower grades, Lee’s (2016) synthesis might have offered more if it had moved beyond the thematisation of research areas to include a more dynamic, comprehensive description of the current EFL writing 
landscape in schools. Besides, the under-representation of EFL writing research in younger learners was still identifified in a more recent synthesis (Riazi et al., 2018). Given this, to inform researchers of the current need to explore writing for EFL students of lower grade, a review of the current scholarship in EFL writing in school contexts is likely warranted. As such, the present review extends Lee’s (2016) work and examines the scholarship on EFL writing in schools between 2012 and 2019. This review, admittedly, covers studies published within a relatively short period of time; it, however, uses a dynamic analysis framework and could present a holistic picture of the current scholarship in EFL writing research focusing on primary and secondary school students. 
Specifically, this review includes two features that distinguish it from similar previous studies. 
First, we systematically traced and coded the empirical studies by summarising their macro and 
micro contexts, participants, research foci, theoretical orientations, methodology, and data sources by referring to the frameworks constructed by Lee (2016), Riazi et al. (2018), and Zheng and Yu (2019), which may help to provide a full picture of and reveal important changes in EFL writing research over time. Second, in addition to answering key questions such as whom has been investigated, what has been studied, and how research has been conducted, this review helps us to identify future research directions. These include but are not limited to tracing the emergence and development of researchable topics in theoretical and methodological orientations and identifying research trends. The current article explores both the content and methods of research on the EFL writing of younger students.


3. Methodology
This section first presents our method of collecting relevant articles for review and then describes
the analytical framework and its rationale.
3.1. Literature Search
To retrieve relevant empirical articles, we searched three electronic databases: Web of Science, Scopus, and the Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC). Two of the researchers independently searched the literature using two broad terms, namely ‘EFL writing’ and ‘L2 writing’,whereby an extensive pool of publications was generated. To identify studies for the review, the following four criteria were established. First, the articles were required to follow an empirical research design, which collects and examines primary data based on a set of methodological assumptions.
Second, the study participants had to be drawn from primary or secondary education contexts.
Studies that involved participants from private language institutes were excluded. As Mohammadian Haghighi and Norton (2017) observed, such institutes are market-oriented and design their curricula and teaching materials to fit the specific purposes of foreign language learners (e.g., to prepare for proficiency tests such as the IELTS). As private language centres may differ from formal educational services, the inclusion of articles that focused on the private sector could have threatened data consistency. Third, the studies were required to have been conducted in an EFL context.
We followed Nation’s (2013) definition of an EFL context as a place where English is mainly used in the classroom, rather than in society at large. Hong Kong is an example of an EFL context, in which English is used as the language of instruction but is not widely used for communication in everyday life. Fourth, the articles were required to have been published between 2012 and 2019. Guided by the above criteria, the researchers screened the abstract, introduction, and methods sections of the initially retrieved publications and compared their search results. After rounds of negotiation, they composed a list of articles specifically concerning EFL writing in schools and further refined the list by excluding brief research reports, articles about private language institutes, and articles published in predatory journals. The final total of 136 empirical articles met all of the inclusion criteria and were considered for our review. Compared with the sample used in Lee’s (2016) research synthesis