Empirical Study Of Process-Oriented Approach Applied In College English Writing Course

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the process-oriented approach on a college English writing course in terms of the English major students'writing achievements and improvements in students'attitudes towards English writing. This study seeks to discover whether the process-oriented approach can help the English major students to learn English writing and improve their writing proficiency and whether the process-oriented approach can improve their attitudes towards English writing and increase their interest and confidence of English writing.The participants from two classes of English Department in a college took part in the eight-week teaching experiment. Data collected from questionnaires was used to qualitatively evaluate the students'attitudes towards the process-oriented approach and English writing. The scores of the writing tests before and after the experiment were compared quantitatively.Through the comparative study between the product-oriented approach and the process-oriented approach, results show that the process-oriented approach can improve the efficiency of students'guided writing and their attitudes towards English writing. However, in the real English writing teaching practice, the process-oriented approach displays its own weaknesses, such as time consuming, hardly suitable for large classes and timed examinations. Therefore, the process-oriented approach combined with other teaching methods is adopted to partly solve the above-mentioned issues and achieve better English writing teaching effects.This teaching experiment was conducted for only eight weeks and the sample composed of two classes of English Department in a college was small. However, it is hoped that the results and analyses of this study could be reference for those teachers who are contemplating the implementation of the process-oriented approach in their real English writing courses.