| This research sets out to make an exploratory study on improving learners'writing competence by the means of writing extremely short stories electronically.The meaning of written texts is co-produced by writers and readers. The writing of writers and the reading of readers are combined to make texts meaningful. However, in the writing class of China, most of the texts produced by English learners are laid aside before their meaning is generated by the co-working of writers and readers. The students'writings are created for teachers to read, and the task of generating meaning between readers and writers is not accomplished well. Usually student writers would have no chance to read them again. As a result, students cannot reconstruct meaning of their texts and revise them. Extremely Short Story Competition (ESSC) which was initiated by Pro. Hassall in 2005 comes up as a promising way of writing practice. All the competitors produce texts not only for teachers, but for a wider audience, such as, schoolmates, classmates, or even the unknown readers. Furthermore, writing, as an integral part of L2 practice, can promote students'development in thinking, for the improvement of language can promote the development of thinking, and in turn is enhanced with the development of thinking. In ESSC, logical thinking and creative thinking are expected to be promoted.In order to justify ESSC in helping students to improve their writing competence in respect of motivating students to write in English, developing students'writing techniques and inspiring students'logical and creative thinking, questionnaires and tests on writing are employed in the research, as well as the statistical tool SPSS and elaborative observations of students'behaviors in writing and careful reading and analyses on their texts. Additionally, an ESSC model is designed in the research with the theoretical guidance of the Constructivist Learning Design. In the design of ESSC, several elements are taken into consideration, including collaboration and interaction among students and between teachers and students, assessment covering teacher assessment, peer assessment and self assessment, and students'reflection after writing. The model for writing tasks is thus created for the experiment. The statistics from the questionnaires and tests indicate that ESSC has positive effects on students'writing. It is effective and efficient to stimulate students to write in English, to encourage students to make their language concise and prompt students to think logically and creatively. Besides, students enjoy the interactive writing process among peers. Their learning is enhanced by exhibiting their own texts, and reading and commenting on texts of others. Students tend to be more independent in their learning and more aware of social interaction by doing so. It is found that sometimes students have difficulties in deciding upon an appropriate topic. Therefore, they need help from teachers and textbooks or other references of information to select topics. The findings of this study indicate that ESSC is potential in helping students improve their writing competence and it is worth being explored and applied. |
