Exploration And Practice Of Task-based Writing In Junior Middle Schools

Writing is a continual process of finding the most effective way to communicatewith each other. It is a challenge to write with the mother tongue or in the targetlanguage. Writing can't be separated from language learning. Writing can not onlyconsolidate what we have learned but also is an important way of communication.Writing can effectively facilitate the internalization of learners'knowledge and checkthe sentence structures and usage in their target language. Writing can also accelerateautomation in the performance of target language, and therefore, promote theacquisition of this language. However, it is not easy to learn how to write.Writing is a complicated and dynamic process. It is restricted by cognitive factorand social factor. The rhetorical environment of writing is more complicated. It comesdown to the restriction and influence of cross-society and cross-culture factors. InChina, English writing is the weakest part of teaching and learning. Although manyEnglish teachers have made great efforts, the effect is little. The students'writingability still can't achieve the anticipated target.The traditional way of teaching writing is a product-oriented approach, as thetitle indicates, focusing on the end result of the learning process. The learner isexpected to be a fluent and competent user of the language. Product-orientedapproach to the development of writing favours classroom activities in which thelearner is engaged in imitating, copying and transforming models of correct language.This usually occurs at the level of the sentence. Process approach, on the other hand,focuses more on the various classroom activities which are believed to promote thedevelopment of skilled language use. In this approach, the focus is on quantity ratherthan quality, and beginning writers are encouraged to get their ideas on paper in anyshape or form without worrying too much about formal correctness. The approachalso encourages collaborative group work between learners as a way of enhancingmotivation and developing positive attitudes towards writing. In addition, and morecontroversially, attention to grammar is played down. Now many scholars and teachers begin to realize that these two approaches alsohave some problems. And some other approaches are practised well abroad but notwell in China. In recent years, increasing attention has been focused on 'task-basedapproach'. Tasks have increasingly been used as units for research into secondlanguage acquisition. Task-basked learning methodology is put forward by manyresearchers of foreign language teaching methodology and researchers of secondlanguage acquisition in the 1980s. Experts and teachers all agree that task-basedlearning and teaching is very important. This point of view influences the teachingmethods, the design of the curriculum and the ways of language acquisition research.Now the task-based approach has been advocated in the draft of National Englishcurriculum Standard to cultivate the students'abilities in the process of teaching.There should be different kinds of mutual activities, that is, the tasks. Students canacquire language during the process of fulfilling the tasks. The language activities inthe classroom are similar to the natural acquisition. We need the skills of speaking andwriting to carry out the tasks and to report the result. So it is important to improve thestudents'writing ability in the classroom teaching of Task-based Approach. With the world's entering the 21st century, English has become more and moreimportant. But English teaching approach in our country cannot keep pace with thedevelopment of the economy of our country. It has aroused great attention of thewhole educational circle to how to develop the practical English writing ability of thestudents. The writer probes the problem by carrying out "task-based approach"in theEnglish-teaching of writing in the junior middle school, combining theory withpractice. The whole article is divided into five parts:1. The problems in the teaching of English writing in the junior middle school and the importance of this research.2. Explaining the theory of 'task-based approach', and pointing out the key issues of the research.3. Operating the 'task-based approach', combining theory with practice to research v...