Analysis Of Effects Of Recitation Input On English Low Achievers’ Writing Proficiency In Senior High School

The existing research of utilizing recitation input as a method to improve students’writing skills in senior high school is quite abundant, but few of them set English lowachievers as their research participants. Therefore, whether recitation input can effectivelyenhance English low achievers’ writing skills still needs to be tested. Based on theprevious theoretical researches and English low achievers’ existing writing problems, thewriter plans to investigate the effectiveness of recitation input as to improve English lowachievers’writing skills by utilizing empirical approach.Among the four basic language skills, speaking and writing belong to the languageoutput. The latter one, however, has more regular patterns to follow for English lowachievers than the former one and is much easier to be enhanced through training. Inaddition, the form of writing is more likely to reduce English low achievers’ learninganxiety than that of speaking. Being restricted by their own unsatisfactory learning abilityand learning method, English low achievers’ learning resources are mainly from theirtextbooks and their teachers. Their language input, therefore, is quite limited. Since mostlow achievers’ learning initiative is very low and they lack strong self-control, mandatoryrecitation input is an effective manner to increase their language input.Based on the reflection of English low achievers’ current writing problems, thewriter makes the hypothesis that recitation input can improve English low achievers’writing skills. To verify the effectiveness of this approach, the writer carries out an11-week long experiment in her internship unit the affiliated high school of LiaoningTechnical University, Liaoning province. The results of the experiment show that thewriting performance of experimental class is significantly better than that of controlledclass. This result indicates that recitation input can effectively improve English lowachievers’ writing performance. Meanwhile, the writer also finds some deficiencies ofrecitation input.This research offers some implications for the future researches, that is, the veryessence of our traditional teaching methods should still be maintained and promoted while English educators beating their brain out to invent some innovative theories andmethods for English low achievers. Making full use of recitation input can not onlyimprove English low achievers’writing skills but also improve their general English skillsto some extent.This thesis can be divided into six chapters:The first chapter mainly introduces the background, purpose and significance of theresearch, all of which provides a general guidance for this research.The second chapter elaborates the definition of English low achiever and Englishrecitation. The characteristics of English low achievers are also provided. Meanwhile, theauthor makes a review of the existing literature in recent years and analyzes thelimitations of these literatures, which offer a strong theoretical background for this thesis.The third chapter further presents the rationale for this research, that is, Krashen’sInput Hypothesis Theory and Swain’s Output Hypothesis Theory. What is more, thewriter not only introduces the close relationship between Krashen’s Input HypothesisTheory and recitation but also presents the close relationship between Swain’s OutputHypothesis Theory and writing, which explain why the writer adopts these two theories asthe rationale for this research.The forth chapter illustrates detailed information about the design of the empiricalresearch.The fifth chapter offers the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the experimentalresults which are obtained from the questionnaire, classroom observation and interview.Relevant suggestions are also proposed.The sixth chapter demonstrates major findings and implications of the research.Meanwhile, the limitations of this research and some suggestions on future research inthis field are also provided.