On The Feasibility Of The Process Approach To Writing Teaching Of College English

Since Writing has been adopted in CET-4 from 1987, students have been doing poorly in writing. "The average scores of writing always stay between 5-7 points"(Jiang Jiaping,1995) Meanwhile, the domestic graduates in China make use of English in their career mainly by writing(Shu Dingfang, 2004). The questionnaires on students snow that college students do realize the importance of written English in their future career. As a result, trying to improve students' writing competence efficiently is a critical necessity for the era and society. Compared with the "the product approach", "the process approach" focuses on the writing process. That is to say, when writing, students will experience pre-writing, dratting and revising, which are the main stages in the writing process. Simultaneously, the process approach contains some typical advantages such as student-oriented teaching pattern, following language learning theory, making writing "freer" which reduces students' writing anxiety, better cultivating students' abilities of creating, thinking and cognition. Quite a few researchers abroad (Emig,1971; Zamel,1982; Jones,1985; Diaz,1985) have implemented "the process approach" in TESL and TEFL class and got the positive effect of this approach. Researchers at home (Wen Qiufang, 1999; Wu Jing, Zhang Zaixin, 2000; Deng Liming , 2003) have proved the feasibility and obtained the strategies of it by studying it from various directions like pre-writing stage, influencing elements and systematic operating patterns. Nowadays, this new approach is increasingly recommended by researchers and instructors. On the other hand, some learners and researchers are still confused about this new approach. They even proposed to use "the product approach" instead of "the process approach".The present study is carried out by implementing "the process approach" on part of freshmen from a college so as to demonstrate the feasibility for different students from different areas. In that way, some efficient supporting proof can be obtained whether "the process approach" can be generalized further.This study tries to answer the following questions:1) Is the process approach feasible in writing teaching of College English?2) To what extent is "the process approach" accepted among freshmen in college?3) Could "the process approach" be popularized in writing teaching?The subjects in this study are 104 freshmen from two classes in a college in Hunan Province. Class One (experimental class) and Class Two (control class) use the same text book and are instructed by the same teacher. The experiment lasted three months, during which "the process approach" was implemented in the experimental class while "the product approach" was conducted in the control class. For the present experiment, three instruments are used: questionnaires on students' attitude to writing, pre-experiment test scores of two classes, post-experiment test scores of two classes. The author got the following results by analyzing the data:1) The students of the experimental class gained more interests in writing after the experiment.2) The students of the experimental class can better finish writing assignment within the given time. From the results, it can be inferred that "the process approach" is feasible in writing teaching of College English.The author expects that this study can help English learners grow to be more confident in writing. Meanwhile, this study is expected to promote increasingly the popularization of "the process approach" in College English Teaching.