A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Free Writing And Controlled Writing On Senior High School Students’ English Writing Proficiency

When one is learning a language, writing is an important component. It is noteasy to write well even in native tongue, not to mention writing in a foreign language.So do Chinese students when they learn to write in English. Nevertheless, waysrequire exploring so as to improve English writing proficiency of students in China.Different writing modes are supposed to have different advantages anddisadvantages, such as free writing and controlled writing. They both have their ownadvantages and have effects on students’ English writing proficiency. But the effectsof free English writing and controlled English writing on students’ writing proficiencyand the similarity and difference between the effects are still unknown. All of themneed a further investigation so that the English teachers can be enlightened and knowhow to apply free writing and controlled writing in their own teaching and what effectthey can expect to achieve.This study aims to provide constructive suggestions in terms of the above topic.Senior high school students are the subjects, for they have a better foundationlinguistically and non-linguistically, compared with the middle and primary schoolstudents. And a combined quantitative and qualitative design is adopted, taking twoclasses of Grade Two as subjects, to whom free writing and controlled writing areapplied respectively. Besides, in each experimental class, students are divided intothree levels: high-leveled subjects, medium-leveled subjects and low-leveled subjectsin order to find out the application of free English writing and controlled English writing to which level of subjects can achieve the best effect.The study lasts for three months and each week, each subject is required towrite a composition. Pre-and post-tests, interviews and samples of students’ writingare to be used to collect data. All the compositions are scored and evaluated based onthe pre-set criteria. The quantitative analysis is done with the help of SPSS16.0.The research results show that both free English writing and controlled Englishwriting can have effect on subjects’ English writing proficiency and their effects havesimilarity and difference. The similarity is that they can both have positive effect onstudents’ writing in terms of vocabulary, grammar, language use, content and structure.The difference is that free English writing help improve high-leveled subjects’ writingscores and English writing proficiency more than the other two levels of subjects.While controlled English writing makes a contribution to improve medium-leveledand low-leveled subjects’ writing scores and English writing proficiency.