A Study On The Application Of Continuation Task To Senior High School English Writing Teaching

For a long time,the National English College Entrance Examination(NCEE)has used topic writing as the composition form,which is controversial because it is not beneficial to the development of students’ imagination and thinking ability.In recent years,Under the background of college entrance examination reform,“continuation-task” in writing has been included in the NCEE by Zhejiang,Shandong and some other pilot provinces and cities in the NCEE reform,and this new type of writing will gradually be applied nationwide.At present,most of the domestic empirical studies on continuation task are about the teaching of college English writing,and few are specific to the high school stage.In addition,the genre of the study on the continuation task is relatively simple,mostly narrative.However,the examination instructions of the Ministry of Education and other documents do not stipulate the genre,which means argumentation,expository and practical writing are also possible.According to the test results of the NCEE in Zhejiang Province since 2016,the majority of candidates did not perform well in the continuation task,which were mainly reflected in the unreasonable plot design of the article,the inconsistency between the continuation paragraph and the previous paragraph.The improper use of vocabulary and grammar in the continuation task is also a matter of concern.This study aims to solve the following research problems:1.What is the current English writing level of the students in a senior high school of Anhui Province?2.What is the influence of continuation task on the English writing ability of senior high school students?3.What is the influence of continuation task on high school students’ English writing motivation?The author conducted an 18-week teaching experiment with a total of 103 students from two classes,and the two classes were divided into experimental class and control class at random.The experimental class used the teaching method of continuation task,while the control class adopted the traditional teaching mode of topic writing.The writing genres involved narration,exposition and argumentation.The purpose is to study whether continuation task can promote the writing level of senior high school students.In addition,in order to understand the attitude of high school students towards continuation task,this study also carried out an interview among the students of the experimental class.At the end of the experiment,the researcher took from of qualitative research and quantitative research with the help of statistical analysis software SPSS26.0 to analyze the experimental results and questionnaires.The results show that:(1)The current English writing level of the senior high school students mentioned above in Anhui Province is not optimistic.The pass rate as well as excellent rate is not ideal,and the writing ability of the students needs to be enhanced urgently.(2)Continuation task has a significant effect on improving the English writing level of senior high school students.The average scores of the post-test increased from 14.48 to 17.98 in the experimental class,with a P value of 0.002,showing a significant difference.Continuation task can effectively improve the English writing level of senior high school students.(3)There is no significant difference between the two classes in the superficial motivation of writing,but the deep motivation and achievement motivation of the experimental class are higher than those of the control class.Post-test scores of experimental class are significantly correlated with English writing motivation and continuation task has a significant effect on enhancing the writing motivation of students in senior high.Based on the above conclusions,the author puts forward the following suggestions from perspectives of teachers’ teaching and students’ learning:Teachers should pay attention to the new writing form of continuation task,and strengthen students’ thinking training in daily teaching to promote the development of students’ imagination and creativity.Teach students specific strategies of continuation task and select suitable reading materials to promote the generation of synergistic effect;Students should overcome the fear towards continuation task,thinking more and practicing more.It is necessary to have the ability to distinguish and choose suitable learning strategies,taking advantages of peer correcting while evaluating to improve their writing ability.