A Study On Dialogue-based English Writing Teaching In Vocational College

In recent years, great changes have taken place in English teaching in China. More and more teachers are dedicated to constructing a democratic and student-centered learning atmosphere. But the situation remains that the present teaching mode is still teacher-centered and students basically receive knowledge passively. In the field of English writing teaching in vocational college, students' writing performance is generally far from satisfaction. Students mainly concern about learning vocabulary and grammar and imitating model compositions in their writing, but they seldom care about expressing of thinking and construction of meaning. In order to solve these problems, this study tries to incorporate dialogue into the English writing process in order to stimulate students to focus more on expressing ideas, communicating thoughts and constructing knowledge. The study primarily investigates the effects of classroom dialogue on students' writing perfonnance and the underlying reasons for these effects.The thesis is made up of five chapters. First, the background, aim and significance of the study are introduced. Then an overview of literature on dialogue and dialogical teaching, as well as writing teaching approaches is provided. The study proposes the dialogue-based English writing teaching based on the theories of Community of Practice and Social Constructivist Model of foreign language teaching. The primary research questions of this study are: What are the effects of dialogue-based English writing teaching on students' writing performance? What are the changes that students perceive to contribute to these effects? In all, 83 students participated in this study. They were sophomores of English major from a vocational college in Zhejiang Province. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are employed. The data collection methods include questionnaire, interview with students and students' reflective diaries. Data analysis indicates that generally dialogue-based writing teaching has positive effects on students' writing.The following findings have been obtained. First, the analysis of students' writing tests shows that students overall writing performance has been improved. Second, data analysis indicates that positive changes in motivation, attitude, belief, social relationship and critical thinking skills have contributed to the students' improvements in writing performance. Specifically, students' intrinsic motivation has been greatly increased, including stimulated interest, lowered anxiety, enhanced confidence and sense of satisfaction. Their attitude and belief about writing have also undergone positive changes in that they tend to focus more on writing content and communication in the writing process. Social relationships in the classroom have also improved, including positive changes in sense of cooperation, friendship, mutual trust, team spirit and communication skills. Students' critical thinking skills have also been practiced and improved in classroom dialoguing.Based on these findings, it can be drawn that dialogue-based writing teaching helps to boost students' English writing performance, and brings about positive changes in students' attitudes and beliefs about writing, classroom social relationships, as well as their thinking skills. Although there are many positive responses to dialogue-based writing teaching, difficulties are also observed in the implementation of this method, the application of which in the writing classroom still needs further research and betterment.