Research On The Application Of "Tree Analysis Diagram Approach" To The Teaching Of Argumentative Writing Of The College Students

Writing as one of essential skills in English learning is attached more and moreimportance. English writing involves not only the application of lexicon and grammar,but also the construction of the text and the expression of the thought. Therefore,English writing is the key standard to measure the English proficiency for Englishlearners. The thinking pattern has profound effect on the construction of the text. Therelevant studies revealed that for Chinese EFL learners, the common problem inEnglish writing is that they tend to apply the Chinese thinking pattern andorganizational pattern to wording, phrasing and even the text construction. In otherwords, Chinese EFL learners lack English thought pattern. At present, the relevantresearches abroad and at home nearly all focused on the writing strategies. However,there are few empirical researches on how to lessen the influence of the Chinesethinking pattern and compose the English writing in a native way. Based on that, theresearcher puts forward the “tree analysis diagram” to help Chinese EFL learnersacquire the English thinking patternThe current research compares the differences between the Chinese thinkingpattern and the English thinking pattern; analyzes the effect of these differences onEnglish writing, answers the following three research questions and verifies theeffectiveness of the “tree analysis diagram” in helping Chinese EFL learnersdeveloping the English thinking pattern and improving the quality of English writingby an experiment. Research question1, what role does the Chinese thinking patternplay in the EFL students’ writing? Are there any changes after the application of the“tree analysis diagram”? Research question2, what are the students’ commonproblems and beliefs during the process of their English argumentative writing? Arethere any changes after the application of the “tree analysis diagram”? Researchquestion3, can the “tree analysis diagram” help Chinese EFL students improve theirEnglish argumentative writing organizational pattern? If helps, to what degree?81 second year students (Grade2010) from English department of Honder College ofInner Mongolia Normal University are involved in the experiment. The questionnairesand writing tests are the main instruments. The results of the research showed that theChinese thinking pattern influences students’ English writing and the main problem isthat the organizational pattern and the logic of the writing are not clear. After theapplication of the “tree analysis diagram”, the results showed that “tree analysisdiagram” to some extent can help Chinese EFL learners avoid the influence of theChinese thinking pattern; improve the ability of composing English writings with theEnglish thinking pattern; develop the habit of conceiving and writing in English;arouse the interest for English writing and eventually improve the quality of Englishwriting.