A Study Of High School Students’ English Letter Writing Ability Based On OBE Concept

English writing is a significant important part of language learning for the learners of English as a second language.For high school students,English letter writing is not only a practical need in social life,but also one of the indicators which used to measure English communicative competence.Nevertheless,numerous empirical researches reveal that in writing English letters,senior high school students have many problems,such as inappropriate language in writing letters,not using polite language,and using wrong cohesive devices in the discourse.As a result,it is an essential challenge for teachers to increase English letter writing ability of senior high school students.The Outcome-based Education（OBE）concept advocates student-centeredness,emphasis on students’ personal development,expansion of learning opportunities,and emphasis on students’ individual progress performance.Based on this,this study applies the concept of OBE to the teaching of English letter writing in high school,aiming to solve the problems encountered in teaching practice.Specifically,this thesis will explore: First,what changes have occurred in high school students’ mastery of linguistic appropriateness in the process of writing the English letters on the basis of OBE concept? Second,what changes have taken place in high school students’ mastery of cohesive devices in the process of writing the English letters on the basis of OBE concept? Third,what changes have occurred in high school students’ mastery of semantic coherence in the process of writing English letter based on the OBE concept?This study was conducted with 60 students in a high school freshman in Dalian,two classes（class 1 as experimental class and class2 as a control class）,for 16 weeks of teaching activities.In the actual teaching work,the experimental class adopted the OBE education concept to guide and help the high school students in writing English letter,while the control class employs the conventional teaching form.The research approaches included tests,questionnaires,as well as text analysis.SPSS 23.0 was utilized to analyze the test data and questionnaires,and the research outcomes were discussed in detail.The study observed that the teaching of English letter writing in accordance with the education concept of OBE is more effective.Firstly,such teaching method can improve students’ mastery of the cohesive devices in letter writing significantly,mainly reflected that student can skillfully use antonyms,synonyms,contextual words and other lexical articulation devices.The students are able to use illumination devices,the linking vocabulary appropriately to make the essay coherent,all of which have made the significantly improvement of the composition writing quality.Secondly,such teaching method can enhance the students’ mastery of language appropriateness in letter writing,mainly reflected that student can choose appropriate language according to different communicative purposes,different reader information and the identity in the English letter writing process.Finally,such teaching method can improve students’ mastery of the semantic coherence of the discourse in letter writing,which is mainly manifested in the strengthening of the coherence of students’ compositions and their ability to complete the communicative tasks appropriately and achieve the expected communicative purposes.As a result,it is practicable to utilize the education concept of OBE to guide English letter writing in the students of senior high school.This method can give new ideas for the teaching reform of English letter writing.