A Study On The Implementation Of The Length Approach In Improving Students' Writing Abilities

In China,English education is the condition that students are passive knowledge receivers and teachers are only instructors.Students have access to large amount of listening and reading practice,however,they lack language output.The Length Approach emphasizes the language output through writing.It aims to enhance students' confidence in writing,and further improve their writing abilities and English proficiency.The Length Approach is intended for Chinese students who are in the state of much input and little product.In the method,writing is taken as an outlet to encourage Chinese students to express more in English.Since the Length Approach was initiated by Processor Wang Chuming,it has aroused much attention in English community in China.By employment of the Length Approach,the author hopes to see that writing long compositions can improve students' writing abilities.This thesis benefits a lot from other researches of the same subject.But the author of the thesis also puts emphasis on the organization of the writing when training students.The author maintains that though the Length Approach is carried out,English involves the overall development of the basic skills including listening,speaking,reading and writing.Some activities are organized and some methods are employed to chat with students,promote their interest in English and finally nourish students' language skills as well as their sense of judgment and ways of thinking.The research is based on the output hypothesis of second language acquisition. The subjects come from the freshmen in Qingdao Technological University.Both the qualitative approach and quantitative approach are employed to find out the influence on the writing abilities after one-term employing the Length Approach. Quantitative approach is employed to collect data from examinations.Then SPSS is conducted to perform descriptive statistics and t-tests.The results show that students in the experiment group make greater process in writing than that in the control group.The purpose of the qualitative approach is to see the changes in students' attitudes towards the approach through two questionnaires and interviews.Then SPSS is employed to process data gained from two five-point Likert scale questionnaires.The results show that students take positive attitudes towards the Length Approach,and they gradually gain confidence in writing.Implications drawn from the study are that students improve their writing abilities and enhance their confidence in writing after the implementation of the Length Approach.From the study,the author realizes that large amount of language output can make students acquire language well;teachers should change their traditional roles and communicate with students through varieties of ways to try to improve their confidence in English learningAlthough limitations are found in this study,the study proves that the Length Approach can improve students' writing abilities effectively.But as a theory,the approach is brand-new;it should keep up with the latest situation.And the teacher can make some changes according to the students' current language competence and put some original ideas in it.Therefore,a full understanding of students' current language level inevitably becomes a key factor of improving their writing abilities.