The Application Of Dual-Subject Communicative Teaching Mode Of College English Writing

Teaching English writing is always the most difficult part of college English teaching in China. How to improve English writing teaching has become one of the heated topics of today. Despite the increasing studies concerning English writing teaching in recent years, the situations are not so satisfactory in China and the English writing is the obstacle to the students'success.Interactive communicative approach has been highly regarded in foreign languages teaching. However, the teaching mode in English writing is still teacher-centered with more attention to the writing products rather than the process of writing, which fails to arouse students'interest. At present, there appears a new popular teaching theory: communication pedagogy which has drawn much concern. This theory pays much attention to the subjectivity and inter-subjectivity in the teaching and learning process. According to communication pedagogy, teaching is a special communicative activity not only between the teacher and the students but also among the students. Human beings are communicating through study and life, and communication among the teacher and the students is the way of campus study and life. Communicative teaching is the teaching activities in which the participants or the subjects (between the teacher and the students, or among the students ) use the language codes like the educating materials as the medium to conduct multi-lateral, multi-level, interpersonal communication and affective communion, and achieve mutual understanding. Based on this theory, the communication subjects are not of the relationship of being subject-object, but of the partnership of being subject-object-subject. There is the same object as the inter-medium, therefore constituting the inter-subjectivity between the teacher and the students, and among the students (李成群,2003: 19). The teacher and the students are forming a learning community. Obviously, this theory is in agreement with the requirements in College English Curriculum Requirements (For Trial Implementation) (2004) and the spirit of college English reform.This thesis, based on communication pedagogy and College English Curriculum Requirements (For Trial Implementation) (2004), analyzes the status quo of the teaching of college English writing and students'English writing performance, and tends to put forward a new communication-focused college English writing instruction mode: dual-subject communicative teaching mode. This mode is presented in great detail from its theoretical basis (communicative pedagogy), characteristics, to functions and to the procedures. Furthermore, the author makes clear the role of the teacher and the students in the classroom teaching communication. The author also designs some effective teaching strategies and introduces the application of the specific teaching techniques and methods in the teaching and learning process, by which students can get motivated and improved in the writing process. The strategies are divided into five types: thematic integrated practice, motivational strategy, mutual participation, collaborative learning, and reflective practice. In the practice, there are the teacher and the students'mutual evaluation and reflection, their co-participation in concrete writing activities and affective communication, as well as students'development in autonomous learning strategies so as to reform the teaching of college English writing and to improve the college students'English writing ability. In addition, in the teaching and learning process, easily seen are the perfect combinations of theory and practice, mode and techniques, and the in-class learning and out-of-class complementary autonomous learning. At the end of the thesis, the author analyzes the data table by comparing the students'scores in writing in two final examinations between which the target teaching mode is applied, reflects on some interview results of the dual-subject communicative teaching mode of college English writing, infers some pedagogical implications and suggests some limitations of the target teaching mode in application.