An Empirical Research Of The Effects Of Iterative Continuation On The Syntactic Complexity Of Senior High School Students’ English Writing

Writing ability plays a critical role in language learning.It reflects learners’ overall language proficiency and facilitates their language development.However,there are still some problems in cultivating students’ writing abilities.Therefore,finding effective writing teaching methods is urgent.Continuation is a method proposed by Professor Wang Chuming(2012)based on the Input hypothesis,Output hypothesis,and Interactive Alignment Model,considered one of the most effective writing teaching methods.Previous studies have confirmed its effectiveness,but the interaction intensity of single-round continuation is far less than that of dialogue.Therefore,based on this,Wang(2018)further proposed iterative continuation,which can further enhance the interaction intensity between learners and reading materials.This study attempts to apply iterative continuation to high school English writing teaching.It investigate the effects of iterative continuation on the syntactic complexity of high school students’ English writing by answering the following research questions:(1)What are the effects of iterative continuation on the syntactic complexity of senior high school students’ English writing?(2)What are the effects of iterative continuation on senior high school students with different language proficiency in terms of the syntactic complexity of English writing?In this study,two classes of senior one at a high school in Hunan Province were selected as the research subjects.They were randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group.Students in each class were divided into high and low language levels.The teaching experiment lasted ten weeks,with one continuation every two weeks.The experimental group used the teaching method of iterative continuation,while the control group used the single-round continuation.Two research instruments were adopted,including writing tests and a semi-structured interview.The pre-test and post-test are used to answer the two research questions,and the interview serves as a qualitative data supplement.The collected data was analyzed using the L2 SCA and SPSS 27.0.Through the analysis of the pre-test,post-test,and interview results,this study draws the following conclusions: Firstly,iterative continuation can significantly improve the syntactic complexity of high school students’ English writing compared with single-round continuation,mainly reflected in the length of language production units and the amount of subordination,but it can not significantly improve the amount of coordination and the degree of phrasal sophistication.Secondly,compared with single-round continuation,iterative continuation has different effects on the syntactic complexity of high school students’ English writing with different language levels.Specifically,iterative continuation writing is more effective in improving the syntactic complexity of high-proficiency students’ English writing regarding the length of production units,the amount of subordination,and the amount of coordination.In contrast,low-proficiency students only show significant improvement in the length of production units.This study provides some implications for English teaching:(1)English teachers should enhance their awareness of combining reading and writing closely and try to apply iterative continuation to high school English writing teaching;(2)In iterative continuation,teachers should provide appropriate guidance and timely feedback to students;(3)When selecting reading materials,teachers must consider students’ English level and choose stories with rich content and interesting plots.