An Investigation Of English Writing Influencing Factors From The Perspective Of English Major Undergraduates

This research aims to investigate factors which influence English writing from the perspective of Chinese English major undergraduates so as to offer some practical and specific suggestions to improve teachers’ teaching efficiency and students’ proficiency of English writing.To achieve the research purpose,a quantitative research was adopted by using a questionnaire survey.The whole research is divided into two steps.The first step is the questionnaire design in which individual interviews were carried out to decide the content of the questionnaire;the second step is a survey by questionnaire.At this step,396 questionnaires designed at the first step were distributed to the Chinese English major undergraduates in the four selected universities of different types and levels in Tianjin.The distribution and collection of the questionnaires lasted for three weeks from Jun 7 to Jun 28 in 2015.A total number of 378 valid questionnaires were used for the data analysis.By analyzing the results of Descriptive Statistics with the help of SPSS 16.0,the author found that in students’ perception,both internal and external factors could influence English writing.Internal factors include writer’s knowledge(vocabulary,topic knowledge,grammar,Chinese way of thinking,knowledge of cohesion and coherence,knowledge of structures of different genres,knowledge of language features of different genres,Chinese way of expressing),psychological factors(writing initiative,writing attitude,writing anxiety,writing purpose,awareness of the importance of English writing,and writing self-efficiency),process factor(writing strategy),along with tidiness of writing,and calligraphy;and external factors include materials used,teaching method,comprehensiveness of the genres of writings given by teachers,teaching content,different writing topics,time for writing,teachers’ feedback,schoolfellows’ interaction,the number of writings teachers assigned and place for writing.Among all these influential factors,tidiness,calligraphy,and schoolfellows’ interaction are three newly discovered factors in this study which have never been found or studied in previous researches.By analyzing the results of Independent Sample T tests,it is revealed that there are significant differences between good writers’ and poor writers’ opinions on the degree of the influence of some specific factors.As is revealed,tidiness,calligraphy,place for writing,and the number of writings given by teachers are considered much more influential on English writing by poor English writers than by good English writers.The findings of this thesis enlarge the number and types of writing influencing factors,contribute to the understanding of English writing process,and throw light on the teaching and learning of English writing.