On The Instrumentality Of On-line Resources In The Teaching Of English Writing--From A Social Constructive Perspective

It is well known that the development of education is closely linked with the progress of the whole society. Any profound change of any society always leads to the reform of education. In the new century, the field of education has been greatly influenced by computer technology. It is generally acknowledged that computer technology, besides its various functions, can be applied to education and the teaching of various objects. As for English teaching, undoubtedly, it is a great tool and help to language teachers. Thus, this thesis tries to discuss the feasibility and superiority of applying computer technology and online resources to the teaching and learning of English writing from the viewpoint of social constructivism. This thesis is divided into six parts as follows:The first part is the introduction, which gives a brief overview of the background and the aim of this thesis.The introduction is followed by Chapter Two, which points out the existing problems in students' writing practice. The reasons are analyzed from two sides including both teachers and students. On the one hand, Chinese students are always influenced negatively by various English certification tests. In these tests, they only pursue high marks and pay little attention to practical competence. This results in the phenomenon of "high mark, low competence". Therefore, it is the testing systems that have misled the directions in the learning of English writing. On the other hand, being influenced by behaviorism, English teachers have tended to adopt the product-oriented approach. The disadvantages of the product-oriented approach, such as, the teacher-centered style and overmuch emphasis on grammatical correctness, have been realized by more and more teachers. Meanwhile, computer technology has been applied to almost every walk of life, including education. In such cases, thisthesis first argues the theoretical support of computer-assisted teaching of English writing. This includes a new teaching theory called social constructivism, a new teaching approach called process-oriented approach and a new evaluation approach called portfolios approach. Then this thesis presents how computer technology, particularly online resources on the Internet, is applied to put these new teaching theories into practice.Social constructivism has a message for language teaching. Under this theory more emphasis is placed on the development of students' cognitive ability; students are taught not only what to learn but also how to learn; additionally, the theory also emphasizes collaboration and interaction with other students and/or with teachers. With this new approach, teachers make an effort to provide students with an interactive learning environment, design authentic learning tasks for them and arouse their intrinsic motivation to study English so that students can actively construct new understanding of the target language as well as its related culture.The portfolios approach is completely different from the traditional evaluation approach. The traditional evaluation approach puts stress on the writing products, so students seldom have an opportunity to modify their own articles; while the new evaluation approach attaches importance to the process of writing. In the new evaluation approach, students hand in a portfolio, which consists of several typical compositions selected by them at the end of the course. These compositions are written in different periods of the term and are read over by the teacher. Usually the teacher only offers suggestions for future improvement of the final drafts but does not mark the papers. Students edit their own writings over and over again according to the suggestions from the teacher and their classmates. The teacher collects students final writing products as well as the original drafts. Through the comparison between the original drafts and the final writing products, the teacher gets to know the whole process of students' writing and the progress made by students in the process. The final teaching segment comprises the interviews...