The Effectiveness Of Length Approach On The Writing Of Chinese Non-English-Major College Students

It is admitted that writing is one of the most important yet the most difficult skills to grasp. Many researchers have been endeavoring to find effective ways that could help enhance students'writing. Wang Churning, based on insightful analyses of Chinese writing teaching situation as well as some important L2 theories, proposed Length Approach, aiming to improve students'writing proficiency by encouraging them to write comparatively long compositions. The effects of LA have been testified in many colleges and high schools. Most of the researches reveal that LA is effective in improving students'writing proficiency and increasing their confidence in writing. Few of them, however, have been conducted to examine the effect of LA on alleviating writing anxiety; and studies on the different effects of LA on high-level students and low-level students are even fewer.On the basis of the previous studies, this thesis tries to investigate three questions: (1) Does LA have significant effect on improving students'writing proficiency? (2) Does LA have significant effect on alleviating students' writing anxiety? (3) Does LA have different effects on improving writing proficiency and alleviating writing apprehension of high-level and low-level students?The participants in the present study were 100 non-English major freshmen from two classes in Lanzhou University. Before the experiment, all of them accepted a writing test and finished a questionnaire called Daly-Miller Writing-Apprehension Scale. The result shows that two classes were at the same level either in writing proficiency or in writing anxiety. Then they were randomly chosen as an experimental group and a control group. Participants in the experiment group received LA and they were asked to finish a composition with no less than 300 words every week. Besides, the teacher corrected the compositions based on the requirements of LA. The control group wrote about 120 words on each topic and the teacher corrected the compositions in the traditional way. The whole experiment lasted 12 weeks. After the experiment was finished, both groups received another writing test and finished the same questionnaire on writing anxiety again. The researcher collected the writing test and writing anxiety scores of two groups both in the pretest and the posttest, and analyzed the data with the assistance of SPSS 11.5. The results showed that:(1) LA has significant effect on improving students' writing proficiency; (2) LA has significant effect on alleviating students' writing anxiety; (3) LA has different effects on high-level students and low-level students. Compared to the high-level, low-level students achieve greater improvements, both in improving writing proficiency and alleviating writing apprehension.The present research might be enlightening for the instruction of English writing. Due to the limited time, the restricted knowledge of the present researcher and other uncontrolled factors, it inevitably has limitations. Several aspects such as the lasting time of the experiment, the sample size and the research design all await further investigation. It is admitted that writing is one of the most important yet the most difficult skills to grasp. Many researchers have been endeavoring to find effective ways that could help enhance students'writing. Wang Churning, based on insightful analyses of Chinese writing teaching situation as well as some important L2 theories, proposed Length Approach, aiming to improve students'writing proficiency by encouraging them to write comparatively long compositions. The effects of LA have been testified in many colleges and high schools. Most of the research reveal that LA is effective in improving students'writing proficiency and increasing their confidence in writing. Few of them, however, have been conducted to examine the effect of LA on alleviating writing anxiety; and studies on the different effects of LA on high-level students and low-level students are even fewer.On the basis of the previous studies, this thesis tries to investigate three questions: (1) Does LA have significant effect on improving students'writing proficiency? (2) Does LA have significant effect on alleviating students' writing anxiety? (3) Does LA have different effects on improving writing proficiency and allievating writing apprehension of high-level and low-level students?The participants in the present study were 100 non-English major freshmen from two classes in Lanzhou University. Before the experiment, all of them accepted a writing test and finished a questionnaire called Daly-Miller Writing-Apprehension Scale. The result shows that two classes were at the same level either in writing proficiency or in writing anxiety. Then they were randomly chosen as an experimental group and a control group. Participants in the experiment group received LA and they were asked to finish a composition with no less than 300 words every week. Besides, the teacher corrected the compositions based on the requirements of LA. The control group wrote about 120 words on each topic and the teacher corrected the compositions in the traditional way. The whole experiment lasted 12 weeks. After the experiment was finished, both groups received another writing test and finished the same questionnaire on writing anxiety again. The researcher collected the writing test and writing anxiety scores of two groups both in the pretest and the posttest, and analyzed the data with the assistance of SPSS 11.5. The results showed that:(1) LA has significant effect on improving students'writing proficiency; (2) LA has significant effect on alleviating students'writing anxiety; (3) LA has different effects on high-level students and low-level students. Compared to the high-level, low-level students achieve greater improvements, both in improving writing proficiency and alleviating writing apprehension.The present research might be enlightening for the instruction of English writing. Due to the limited time, the restricted knowledge of the present researcher and other uncontrolled factors, it inevitably has limitations. Several aspects such as the lasting time of the experiment, the sample size and the research design all await further investigation.