The Effects Of Pre-task Planning Means On English Writing Performance Of Senior High School Students

As an important part of writing process,pre-task planning can reduce writers’ burden on information processing.Previous studies mainly focus on the effects of pre-task planning types and pre-task planning time on second language writing performance.However,fewer studies focus on whether pre-task planning means have positive effects on students’ English writing performance.Therefore,the study takes the effects of pre-task planning means on English writing performance of senior high school students as research topic so as to examine: 1)what are the effects of pre-task planning means on students’ English writing performance,2)what are students’ perceptions of pre-task planning means in English writing.The experiment chooses 105 senior high school students as research subjects,and divides them into form-focused planning group,meaning-focused planning group,form & meaning-focused planning group.The experiment consists of four stages,such as pre-test,teaching treatment,post-test,questionnaire and interview.The study implements pre-test in the first week to examine students’ English writing proficiency.From the second week to ninth week,the study carries out 8-week teaching treatment,students in three groups respectively use form-focused planning,meaning-focused planning and form & meaning-focused planning to finish writing,and complete one writing task in each two weeks.In the tenth week,the study performs post-test so as to judge the effects of pre-task planning means on students’ English writing performance.The questionnaire and interview are conducted in the eleventh week so as to explore students’ perceptions of pre-task planning means in English writing.After the experiment,the study mainly evaluates students’ English writing performance from the perspective of writing scores,complexity,accuracy and fluency,and uses SPSS 24.0 to analyze comparatively English writing differences of students in three groups between pre-test and post-test.The findings of the study are as follows.Firstly,pre-task planning means exert positive effects on students’ English writing performance.To be specific,three pre-task planning means promotes significantly students’ English writing scores,form-focused planning has positive effects on writing accuracy,meaning-focused planning contributes to the improvement of writing fluency,form & meaning-focused planning obviously improves writing syntactic complexity and accuracy.Secondly,it can be seen from the results of questionnaire and interview that most students have positive perceptions of pre-task planning means in English writing.The findings of the study have importantly pedagogical significance for English writing teaching.First of all,teachers can better understand the feasibility of pre-task planning means in English writing teaching through this study.Secondly,teachers also help students choose a kind of planning mean before writing that is appropriate for their language level.Finally,teachers need to make sure that students have opportunities and time to plan before writing.