A Study On Application Of The Length Approach In Senior High School English Writing Teaching

The Length Approach is a new type of writing-teaching method which was first proposed byWang Chuming (2000). It is an important development of Swain’s comprehensible output theoryin China. It not only effectively proves that comprehensible output theory has played a great rolein China’s second language teaching and learning, but also finds a new efficient way for China’sEnglish writing-teaching. In China, most English teachers pay much more attention to students’language input. They have students do a lot of English reading and listening practice. However,they ignore the language output in some degree. The Length Approach emphasizes the languageoutput through writing. It aims at helping senior grade two students achieve better results anddecreasing students’ anxiety in English writing. In this way, to increase students’ confidence inwriting，and further improve their writing abilities. It accords with the need of increasing languageoutput for Chinese students.This study aims at finding out whether applying the Length Approach can help senior gradetwo students achieve better results and decrease their anxiety in English writing as well whether itcan be accepted by senior grade two students. The subjects of the experiment are109students.They are from two classes of Grade Two in Guiyang No.6high school. The experiment uses thetwo group pretest-posttest method, in which the experimental group is taught with the LengthApproach, while the control group is taught with the traditional way. Two composition paper testsand three questionnaires are employed to find out the effect of applying the Length Approach tosenior high school students. The results of the tests show that students in the experiment groupmake greater achievements in writing test than that in the control group after three months’experiment. Through the comparison of the results of the three questionnaires, the author foundthat Length Approach have decreased students’ English writing anxiety after the experiment and itcan be accepted by most of the students.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction. It is an overview of thewhole thesis. Chapter two is a literature review, which mainly includes the theoretical basis ofLength Approach—the Input Hypothesis and the Output Theory, and the main content of theLength Approach. Chapter three is the research design of the study. Chapter four refers to theresults of the experiment and discussion. This chapter will present the data got from theexperiment, and discuss the collected data—the analysis of the two tests and the analysis of thethree questionnaires. Chapter five is the conclusion of the whole thesis. It includes the conclusionof the whole thesis, the implication and limitation of the study.The results of this research indicate that the Length Approach is of great significance inEnglish teaching for senior grade two students. From the study, the author realizes that thestudents’ English writing ability can be improved through more language output；teachers shouldchange their traditional roles and try to provide more opportunities for students to increaselanguage output. Besides, the teacher should create more ways to decrease students’ writing anxiety in Learning English. The author believes that Length Approach should be applied in moreschools, and it is essential for the teacher to lay more emphasis on language output in languageteaching.