Interactive Approach To The Teaching Of Writing In College English Classroom

English writing is one of the four basic skills of English learning. Writing teaching is indispensable to language teaching. However, for quite a long time, writing teaching and learning has been perplexing English teachers and students. Most teachers stick to the traditional Product Approach which weighs a final product in terms of spelling, grammar, rhetoric, etc., with the content of the writing paid little attention to. Under such an approach, teacher is the authority and the only audience of students' writing. Thus when students confront a writing task, they are over-anxious and don't know where to start and how to start. They write for the teacher, and their writing usually reads dull, although some may be formally perfect. Since the National Education Committee incorporated writing into College English Test in 1987, the average writing score of students has always been from 5 to 7, with the full marks of the writing section to be 15. Writing is the item where students lose the most scores. The situation stimulates a consideration as to the implementation of another writing approach which will be more effective.On the basis of the above consideration, this paper proposes that the application of Interactive Approach in the writing teaching substitute the Product Approach. Three aspects of theoretical basis are included. First, the ultimate nature of language is communication. Interaction is what communication is all about. Writing involves the writer-text-reader interaction. Second, interactive language teaching is based on Brown's 12 principles. Third, according to Krashen's (1981) Affective Filter Hypothesis, the Interactive Approach, if adopted in writing teaching, can lower students' affective filter, and make students interest and have confidence in writing.On the basis of the theory, the paper introduces the design of the writingtechniques and their application. Considering the students' cognitive ability and language level, teachers may design the writing techniques according to the following five principles: incorporation of practices of "good" writers, balance of process and product, explanation of cultural background, connection between reading and writing, and provision as much authentic writing as possible. The different writing techniques can be brainstorming, freewriting, and peer-editing, etc. In order to help students with different writing proficiency master different writing techniques, teachers may use different classroom organization: class writing, group writing, and individual writing. In different stages, teachers may give students different writing training, for example, guided writing, topic writing. To compare the teaching effect of the Interactive Approach with that of the Product Approach, the writer makes an experiment. The subjects of the experiment are second-year students of two natural classes with one titled as the treated class and the other the control class. Before the experiment, their writing level has no significant difference. In the experiment, the control class is instructed under the Product Approach, and the Interactive Approaches exploited in the treated class. After the experiment, the students from both classes take the CET-4 test. The analysis of their writing scores shows that the teaching effect of the Interactive Approach is better than that of the Product Approach. Therefore, the writer suggests that the Interactive Approach be adopted to the teaching of English writing.