An Experimental Study Of Write-to-Learn Method In The English Language Teaching

It is said (Wang Chuming et al, 2000) that, in China, L2 learners spend a lot of time in learning English, however, they do not know how to make use of it efficiently and effectively. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to solve this problem now.Merrill Swain (1995) claims that output hypothesis has three functions: (1) the noticing/ triggering function; (2) the hypothesis-testing function; (3) and the metalinguistic function. Output, the production of language, can enhance L2 learning. Based on a one-term-long experiment, Professor Wang Chuming et al claim that writing long compositions plus motivation can facilitate L2 performance. However, his research subjects consist of 201 key-university English majors. Does it fit for non-key-university, non-English majors, too? The present thesis is aimed to find out: (1) what achievements the participants can make through the write-to-learn composition experiment? (2) how the subjects will feel about writing long compositions through questionnaires?This thesis is made up of four chapters.Chapter One is literature review. L2 learning is conditioned by input, output and motivation. This thesis is grounded on output hypothesis and motivation. Therefore, this chapter is focused on output hypothesis, motivation and L2 learning.Chapter Two is a write-to-learn experiment. The participants are seventy-seven university sophomores who major in respectively accounting and computation in two intact classes. They are selected through convenience sampling. The research instrument is a two-group pretest-posttest experiment to collect data and see whether the write-to-learn experiment (theindependent variable) can enhance L2 achievements (the dependent variable) with other variables being controlled. The data are collected by the thesis writer in person, too. Then, SPSSV11.5 is employed to perform descriptive statistics and t-test. The results show that writing long compositions can significantly improve their English.Chapter Three is a survey study. The subjects are forty-one university sophomores who major in accounting in one intact class. They are selected through convenience sampling. The research instrument is two five-point Likert scale questionnaires designed to collect data and find out how the L2 learners feel about writing long compositions. The data are collected by the present thesis writer personally. Then, SPSSV11.5 is employed to conduct descriptive statistics and t-test. The results show that the subjects take positive attitudes towards writing long compositions.Chapter Four deals with two implications drawn from the two studies. One of them is that L2 learning needs more output. The other is that we should try our best to motivate L2 learners.To sum up, the study results show that: (1) writing long compositions can significantly improve L2 learners' English; (2) the L2 learners feel positive towards writing long compositions in English. Therefore, write-to-learn method can be generalized.