Applying The Continuation-writing Task To The Teaching Of English Writing In Senior High Schools

Writing occupies an important position in English teaching and testing in high schools.However,a tendency in Chinese high schools is that English teachers tend to place more emphasis on input than output,giving rise to a serious imbalance between students’ English reading and writing.In view of such a situation in English teaching,Wang Chuming(2012)puts forward the concept of continuation-writing task,in the hope that by encouraging students to finish uncompleted texts,their writing ability would be finally improved.Under the guidance of his theory and practice,the present study intends to apply the continuation-writing task method to the English teaching in a senior high school to explore the ways of stimulating students’ confidence and creative thinking in their English writing,thus improving their writing skills.Based on Krashen’s(1985)input hypothesis,Swains’ s(1993)output hypothesis and the alignment effect,this thesis tries to investigate two research questions:(1)Can the continuation-writing task exert its influence on students from the key class and those from the regular class?(2)What is the attitude of the students in question toward the continuation-writing task method ?The conclusions were reached as follows.Firstly,the continuation-writing task method had a significant influence on the writing performance of the students.Not only did the grammatical errors in the writing decrease remarkably,the content of their writing also became even more substantial.Besides,the writing skills of the students in the two experimental classes had improved significantly.It was obvious that the continuation-writing task method was of great help in proving students’ writing skills.Secondly,with the help of Jacob’s(1981)ESL composition assessment,it can be seen distinctly that no matter which level students have reached,all of them have made great progress in the aspects of content,organization,language use and vocabulary.Thirdly,the continuation-writing task method also exerted a great impact on the students’ attitude towards English writing.It showed that many students were no longer afraid of writing,with more willingness to accept the task.In a nutshell,English teachers should attach great importance to the combination of reading and writing in their teaching activities,and teachers should enlighten students’ critical thinking by the continuation-writing task.