An Investigation Of The Application Of "Write To Learn" Approach To College English Learning

This thesis covers an experimental study on the application of"Write to learn"or"Length Approach"in EFL teaching and learning. Taking into account some problems in the EFL teaching and learning, this study was carried out to search for an effective approach to improve English proficiency among non-English majors.The Length Approach,initiated by Professor Wang Chuming,is a brand-new approach to the FL teaching of writing. The Length Approach is a task-based,experiential,and write-to-learn approach to foreign language learning,with special attention paid to satisfy learners'affective needs. It is primarily based on four pedagogical ideologies: (1)Writing long compositions can alleviate learners'anxiety in writing, so as to facilitate FL learning;(2)Language competence is not teachable, but learnable; (3)Writing long compositions can accelerate the internalization of what has been learned; (4)Writing long compositions can help students transcend the self, broaden their visions,and bring their FL learning potential into full play.113 non-English majors from a university of Jiangxi Province participated in the quasi-experiment of"write to learn". The quasi-experiment lasted for eight weeks. At the beginning of the experiment, the questionnaire was distributed to the subjects and collected during a regular lesson. At the end of the experiment, the same questionnaire was distributed and collected during another regular lesson. The questionnaire synthesizes the factors of confidence, anxiety and attitudes toward the Length Approach based on the questionnaires by Professor Wang Chuming (2000) and by Daly and M.D. Miller (1984). An interview was conducted to help the researcher gain an in-depth understanding of the students'perceptions of Length Approach in EFL classroom. A pre-test and a post-test focusing on subjects' English proficiency is used to find weather Length Approach improve the students'English ability. Results showed that the Length Approach, to some extent, eases learners' anxiety, and that it helps to improve the writing proficiency through a free environment with a lot of autonomy. Length Approach also strengthens their self-confidence, therefore enhancing their motivation and increasing their writing output both in quantity and quality.There are five chapters in this thesis. The opening chapter generally introduces some background information about the studies concerning college English writing, and presents a rough picture of this study as well as the need for such a study. This introduction chapter is followed by the literature review, in which some key terms mentioned in this thesis are defined---output hypothesis, output-based models, the Length Approach to writing, and social and educational context in China. Chapter 3 is the methodology chapter. Details about the design of the experiment carried out in this study are listed in this chapter, including the specific research questions and hypotheses, subjects, instruments, and experiment design. Chapter 4 is the results and discussion. With an eight-month experiment, the answers to each of the research questions in the study and the conclusion drawn from the results are reported in this chapter. The conclusion chapter includes major findings, implications of the findings, and limitations of the study.This study has both theoretical and practical significance. Firstly, the research proposes the role of Length Approach that based on out-put in second language acquisition. Secondly, it is confirmed in this study that language use and production is an essential part of language learning, and that one can learn the L2 through using the language. Length Approach is suitable to the daily teaching, because it can alleviate the students' writing anxiety, improve student's self-confidence, and be helpful to acquisition second language.