An Effect Of Model-imitation In English Writing Instruction In Vocational School

In a long term, many researchers disagree with each other on the effectiveness of the model—imitation practice in writing teaching. This paper is to examine the role of model—imitation practice in the teaching of writing in vocational school by experiment. To be specific, the study tries to find out an answer to the question: Is model—imitation practice a more effective way of writing teaching than the non-model-imitation one?Theoretically, model—imitation practice is based on the imitating theory of behaviorism. Practically, many people find the advantages of using models, while others have the opposite perspective. In view of the existing conflicts and related studies, three questions were addressed in the present study:(1). Is model—imitation practice a more effective way in the teaching of English writing to the vocational school students?(2). Can the gender affect the writing performance during the model—imitation practice? Namely, do boys and girls make different progress after the model—imitation practice?(3). Can the imitation to certain type of writing improve the performance of other types of writing?The subjects are 100 students in grade 2 from Dingzhou No. 2 vocational school in Hebei province. During the experiment of one semester, model-imitation practice was conducted in experiment class. While in control class, no model compositionswere provided. Pretests and posttests were administered in the experiment so that the effect of the experiment could be tested. A questionnaire was conducted to the EG after the experiment. The aim of the questionnaire was to know about the students' attitude towards the model—imitation. The scores of pretests and posttests were dealt with by SPSS 11.0. The results of the questionnaire were completed by hand. The research found: 1) Both experiment group (EG) and control group(CG) improved their writing performance through the experiment. But the EG showed better than the CG, which indicated model—imitation practice was better than non-model—imitation practice in vocational school. 2). Gender can't affect the achievement during the process of model—imitation 3).The imitation practice can also enhance the achievement of other types of writing. The results of the questionnaire revealed 96% of students thought model essays were useful.Although limitations are analyzed in the last part of the paper. Results of the research can provide valuable references for English writing theory. It is supposed to offer some recommendations for further research in future.