An Action Research On The Effect Of Length Approach On English Writing Competence Of Junior High SchoolStudents

The Length Approach is a method of Write-to-Learn and is also a brand-new approach to foreign language writing teaching. It requires the students to write long compositions to improve their English, the longer the better. It is assumed that the approach can help improve the students’ interested in English, widen their thoughts and bring their potentials into expression in practice so that it can enhance their confidence and spur them to learn English. The approach has been under experiments in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and some other universities in China since March,1999. Its validity has been fully confirmed by many famous experts and learners in English teaching field. Some experts confirmed that Length Approach can be used in the middle schools, or at least senior high schools.The thesis aims at applying the Length Approach to English writing teaching in junior middle school. Research participants are students in Junior3from a rural middle school,80students in all. They were divided into two groups, one was control group which was taught in the traditional writing model and the other was experimental group which was taught in Length Approach model. The action research lasted for one semester (about20weeks). Problems of English writing were identified through investigation in terms of questionnaires and interviews on students’English writing. The problems included:1) Students were afraid of writing compositions;2) Students were not interested in writing and less confident in writing;3) Students had trouble in expressing their ideas in English writing. Therefore, the author would like to explore whether Length Approach can effectively improve students English writing competence.The research questions are as follows: 1) Can Length Approach enhance students’confidence and sense of achievement in writing?2) Can Length Approach help students improve their writing ability?This study included two cycles by means of the action research approach. The first cycle consisted of:planning, implementing, observing and collecting data, analyzing data and reflecting on the results. The second cycle was comprised of revising the cooperative plan, implementing the revised plan, observing and collecting data, analyzing data and reflecting on the findings.The collected data included two questionnaires on students’attitudes toward length approach, the test grades in the mid-term and final examinations and interviews. By analyzing the data, conclusions were drawn as follows:1) Length Approach can greatly enhance students’confidence and sense of achievement in writing.2) Length Approach can effectively promote students’writing competence.The results of this research indicate that Length Approach is of great significance in English teaching for junior high school students. From the study, the researcher realizes that the students’English proficiency can be improved through more language output and teachers should change their traditional roles, try to provide more opportunities for students to increase language output. Besides, the teacher should create more ways to increase students’ confidence in Learning English. Although there are still some limitations in the study, the study successfully proved that the Length Approach can improve students’writing abilities effectively. And the author makes some changes according to junior high schoolstudents’current language proficiency and put some original ideas in it. The author believes that Length Approach should be applied in more schools and it is essential for the teacher to put more emphasis on language output in language teaching...