A Study On Multi-Interactive Approach In College English Writing Teaching

In order to improve students' English writing proficiency, cultivate the ability of cooperation, optimize writing teaching process and advance college teaching efficiency, the study tries to apply Multi-interactive Teaching Approach (MITA) to college English writing teaching. Through the comparison between MITA and traditional teaching method, the thesis studies and analyzes the data collected from the experiment in order to test the effectiveness of MITA. In practice, students' emotion and intellect will be integrated into language behavior. The three teaching layers of process, content and method are concerned with such three interrelated interactive relations in teaching as interaction among human, interaction between subjects and objects, and interaction among senses. At the layer of teaching process, interaction among human can be classified as interaction between teachers and students and interaction among students. At the layer of teaching content, interaction between subjects and objects mainly consists of the interaction between human and text and interaction between human and multi-media. At the layer of teaching method, interaction among senses requires such functions of ears, mouths, eyes and hands as listening, speaking, reading and writing interact in specific language practice to exert integral influences.The experiment lasts 18 weeks, the experiment shows MITA has positive effects on students' writing proficiency and it can be popularized in college English writing. The thesis is divided into six parts.Chapter one presents the background and the outline of the research.Chapter two first reviews definitions of writing given by linguists, and then reviews related teaching approaches proposed by Raimes and Hillock. Ann Raimes, Adjunct Professor City University of New York—Hunter College Department of English, presents six approaches to teaching writing: the controlled-to-free approach; free-writing approach; the paragraph-pattern approach; the grammar-syntax-organization approach; the communicative approach; the process approach. While Hillocks identifies three major instructional modes found in classrooms—the presentational, natural process and environmental modes.Chapter three, Multi-interactive Teaching Model of College English Writing is introduced. The author first introduces the objective of teaching, theoretical foundation, the model, principles of MITA, characteristics of MITA, then instructional procedures of MITA, teaching strategies, and evaluation are presented.Chapter four, an experimental research is conducted to confirm the hypothesis. The experiment is carried out in three periods which are pre-test, test and posttest. The subjects are ten classes of Grade 2006 of Harbin Normal University. Qualitative study and quantitative study are involved in the study. Four instruments were employed in this study, that is, a questionnaire, an interview, two CET 4 compositions and Flanders Interaction Analysis System.Chapter five involves major findings and discussions, giving some pedagogical suggestions based on MITA which could be introduced in the curriculum of university composition classes and limitations of the present research.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis. The thesis draws the conclusion that MITA can inspire students' motivation, motivate students' interests and improve students' English writing proficiency. But the study is only carried out in a small range; there is room for further study.