An Inquiry Into The Process Approach To Teaching College English Writing

Recent domestic studies reveal that the traditional product approach dominates the current teaching of college English writing in China and it has led to the students' low interest toward English writing and insignificant improvement in their writing competence. Deng et al (2003) introduced the process approach to teaching second language writing into China and presented its advantages over the product approach. However, no domestic empirical studies have yet been carried out so far to examine its feasibility and effectiveness in improving the college students' interest in English writing and their writing competence. With this as its very purpose, the present paper is mainly concerned with the following three research questions:1. To what degree can the process approach improve the college students' attitudes towards English writing and their writing habits?2. Can the process approach to teaching college English writing improve the students' English writing competence more effectively than the product approach?3. Can the process approach benefit both good and poor student writers?The participants were 75 college non-English-major sophomores from Henan Agricultural University. During the four months' instructional intervention, the teacher conducted the process approach to teaching English writing in the experimental class and the product approach in the control class. Four research instruments including writing questionnaire, the writing list, the ESL composition profile and the semi-structured interviews were used to collect data necessary for the study. Analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data showed that most of the students in the experimental class became interested and confident in English writing after the experiment, and their writing competence was much better than those in the control class. Both the good and poor writers acknowledged that they benefited a lot from the process writing teaching. Therefore, process approach proves to be feasible and effective in the teaching of college English writing.It is hoped that the Chinese college English teachers can have a better understanding of the process writing approach and be able to apply it into the teaching practice. Meanwhile, it is recommended that English teachers make further studies to better improve the students' English writing competence as well as their overall language proficiency.