An Experimental Study On Application Of Theme-based Instruction Mode In Senior High School English Reading-to-write Teaching

As specified in the New English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017Edition),English core competence is determined as the specific target of the English curriculum,which is composed of language competence,cultural consciousness,thinking quality and learning ability.Among the above mentioned four aspects,language competence is considered as the fundamental element of the other three.And English writing,as an important integral part of language competence,has nowadays attracted more and more attention at home and abroad.In order to improve senior high school students’ writing proficiency,the new SEFC(2019 Edition)has compiled a special part“Reading for Writing”,which is aimed at cultivating senior high school students’ expressive skills based on the improvement of their understanding skills,thus making“reading-to-write teaching” come into being.In addition,the New English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School also put forward the suggestion that,by integrating the different aspects of English core competence,teachers should improve senior high school students’ core competence based on thematic contexts.However,when teaching “Reading for Writing”,teachers teach the two integrated parts(reading and writing)separately.What’s worse,most of them fail to teach writing based on the theme.Under these circumstances,most of senior high school students are poor at English writing by getting very low scores in the tests for writing part.Especially they are very poor in expressing their ideas by using appropriate language,textual organization,contents and cohesion.Based on this,this thesis attempts to explore the feasibility for implementing theme-based instruction mode in reading-to-write teaching,with the hope that it can provide pedagogical implications for English writing teaching.With Constructivism,Input Hypothesis and Output Hypothesis as theoretical framework,the following two research questions are investigated through quantitative study:1.Is it possible that applying TBI mode in reading-to-write teaching can improve senior high school students’ practical writing proficiency?2.What is the influence of applying TBI mode in reading-to-write teaching on senior high school students’ English writing proficiency in the four different aspects such as appropriate language expressions,textual organization,appropriate contents,and proper cohesion?In this study,103 students from Grade 11 at a key senior high school in Hubei province were determined as research subjects.Among them,Class 9 was chosen as the Control Class with 52 students and the English writing teaching for this class was in the traditional writing teaching mode;Class 6 was the Experimental Class with 51 students who were instructed with the new mode.The experiment lasted three months and the data collected before and after the experiment was analyzed by using SPSS.The results are as follows:1.This mode is effective in improving senior high school students’ overall English writing achievements;3.The mode exerts a positive and obvious influence on improving senior high school students’ English writing in language expressions,textual organization,contents,and cohesion.Among these four specific aspects,the richness of contents has been improved most obviously.Taking all the findings into consideration,it can be concluded that the new writing teaching mode boasts certain referential significance to senior high school English writing teaching.Outlined below are the pedagogical implications:(1)Teachers are expected to focus on the same theme in reading-to-write teaching;(2)Based on the theme,teachers should actively create context,and guide students to read for specific tasks;(3)Teachers should draw students’ attention to the specific writing marking standards such as language expressions,textual organization,contents,and cohesion.In this way,students will be more likely to concentrate on the specific aspects of writing when expressing their ideas and improve their English writing proficiency.Whereas,this research only focuses on the impact of senior high school students’ practical writing.So the writing type which is studied here is relatively single,and the pedagogical implications for writing teaching are limited.What’s worse,there also exist limitations on samples and experimental time.Hence,the new mode is worthy of further study.