A Study On The Application Of Four Square Writing Method To The English Writing Teaching In Junior High School

English writing is one of the four integrated language skills for students,and it plays a vital role in junior high school’s English teaching.However,not much attention has been received and the effect of English writing teaching is not very satisfactory in junior high school’s English teaching.At present,writing teaching is dominated by traditional product-based approach,which is relatively boring.This paper investigates the effect of the four square writing method on the English writing teaching via tests,questionnaires and interview.The research questions in this paper are:1)How does the four square writing method affect students’ writing quality in terms of content,organization and language?2)What is the difference in the effect of four square writing method on the higher-level students’ and lower-level students’ writing quality in terms of content,organization and language?3)How does the four square writing method affect students’ attitude toward English writing?In this study,both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted based on theories of Constructivism and Cooperative learning.The researcher conducted a six-week teaching practice.Altogether 96 Grade Seven students in Kunshan Zhoushi Junior High School were chosen as participants,among which 48 students were in the control class(CC)and 48 students in the experimental class(EC).The Product Approach was applied to the CC and the Four Square Writing Method was used in the EC.There was no significant difference in students’ writing quality in terms of content,organization and language between CC and EC in the pre-test.In the writing test of the post-test,two teachers marked students’ writing according to Cohen’s(2015)scoring criteria and the average of the two scores were taken as the final score of each student.The results of quantitative research were analyzed by independent sample T-test and paired sample T-test in SPSS 22.0.The qualitative research mainly involved the interview with six representative students.The interview was conducted in Chinese.After the interview,the researcher transcribed the recorded content and translated into English and took detailed notes of their answers.The results show that:Firstly,the four square writing method has a significant effect on improving students’ writing quality(p=.000)in terms of content(p=.000)and organization(p=.000).Students who received the new teaching method perform better in the overall content and organization of their writings.More specifically,the content of students’writings changed from basically trying to cover all the required points to deeply expressing their own ideas that are closely associated with the writing topic.In terms of organization,the potential mistakes such as lacking of logical sequencing and disconnection have been decreased.In addition,the cohesion in their writing has been strengthened by the correct usage of transitional words.However,student’s performance didn’t show a significant improvement in the language of their writing(p=.055).Secondly,the four square writing method has a significant effect on both higher-level and lower-level students’ writing quality.For students of different score levels,the four square writing method had significant effects on lower-level students’ writing quality(p=.000)in terms of content(p=.001),organization(p=.000)and language(p=.000).However,it only had significant effect on higher-level students’ writing quality(p=.003)in content(p=.001)and organization(p=.000).There may be a little room for the higher-level students to improve because of a solid foundation of English knowledge before the experiment.Thirdly,the four square writing method has a positive effect on students’ attitude toward English writing.Through the experiment,students show a positive change in their attitudes towards writing.They take the four square writing method as an effective and helpful method to make them more well-prepared before writing,more logical,coherent and organized while writing and develop good habits after writing.In addition,the students master the method of writing and are no longer afraid of writing after learning the four square writing method.It is due to the specific writing procedures of four square writing which enable students to learn more about how to write under limited writing practice.This paper has some pedagogical implications according to the major findings.First of all,the four square writing method creates a student-oriented class environment where the role of class shifts from the teacher to the students.It also stimulates the subjective enthusiasm of students.In addition,students’ writing ideas are inspired and their thinking abilities are enhanced as a consequence of activities like brainstorming and discussion.Writing teaching has an important implication,and deserves teachers’ awareness and effort to improve the teaching quality.The teacher should devote himself to making the writing teaching more interesting so as to meet students’ cognitive level.