Writing To Learn: An Empirical Study Of Length Approach On ESP Students

Length Approach, initiated by Professor Wang Chuming from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, is a brand-new approach to the FL teaching of writing. In a broad sense, it is a reform on China's FL teaching. Wang's experiment shows that English majors made progress in English writing by writing long compositions. Does the approach fit non-English majors, too? The present research is undertaken to find out: (1) Can the students make achievements through Length Approach experiment? (2) How will the students feel about writing long compositions?Eighty-eight freshmen majoring in Accounting in two classes, from Changchun Taxation College, participated in the study. Forty-five of them formed the Experimental Group (EG), given writing long composition practice. The other forty-three students served as the Control Group (CG), receiving teacher-oriented lessons without Length Approach. All the other conditions of these two groups were controlled: the same teacher, teaching materials and length of class time. The data were collected from the pretest and the posttest in final exam and English writing, and one questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed by Wang Chuming et.al, which attempted to test the students'attitude from different perspectives towards Length Approach. It was administered twice, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the semester. Through analysis of students'attitude towards Length Approach from the two questionnaires, statistic analysis of students'scores of compositions from the pretest and the posttest, and the scores from the two final examinations, the author attempts to test the effectiveness of Length Approach to college English writing instruction.The results showed that writing long compositions can significantly improve learners'English proficiency. The learners felt positive towards writing long compositions in English. Therefore, Length Approach plays a positive role in actual writing and enhances non-English majors'writing ability, as well as the overall English proficiency.