Applying Process Genre Approach To Teaching Letter Writing In Senior High School

English letter writing is a writing format that senior high school students have to master. The author's teachmg experience and related research materials indicate that some problems exist in quite a few students' letter writings, such as insufficient content, improper genre, lack of connectives and too many grammar errors. The reasons why the above problems occur are as follows: in teaching, a heavy emphasis on grammatical form and final product; ignorance on writing process; the lack of genre instruction and the need for more diverse types of feedback etc. Process genre approach focuses on the writing process and the application of proper genre. It is good for students in generating and organizing ideas to reach writing purposes.The author explored and applied the process genre approach to teaching. Instruments used in this thesis include tests, a questionnaire, an interview and observation. Research questions are whether process genre approach can help students improve genre sensibility, writing ability in enriching letter contents, language accuracy, and the ability of using connectives and produce new understanding of English writing.The research was conducted in English writing class at Xinzhou No.3 Senior High School in Shanxi, in September to November of 2006, and it lasted three months. Class One (60 students) and Class Two (60 students) took part in the experiment. The two classes received the same writing teaching approach. Also pre-test, post-test, pre-survey and post-survey were conducted to the 120 students, and class observation as well as interview was conducted. The experimental data were analyzed by SPSS12.0.The result indicates that after the process genre approach: 89.2 percent of the students can write their letters by using proper genres; the pre-test and the post-test show the students' ability in enriching the letter content has been improved significantly; pre-test and post-test also shows students' ability in using connectives has also been improved significantly, but not in language accuracy; writing observation, questionnaire and interview indicate the students involved in the experiment have had changed their understanding of English writing.