Research On The Practical Efficiency Of The Application Of Process Approach To English Writing In Senior High School Compared With Product Approach

The paper made a comparative study into teaching Egnlish writing. Process approach and product approach are the two most important teaching methods widely used in China. In this dissertation, the author will contrast the practical efficiency of process approach and product approach in improving senior students' English writing proficiency through experimental research. The study includes three hypotheses:(1) Both approaches contribute to the gains of English writing proficiency for senior students;(2) Process approach is more effective than product approach in developing students' abilities in thinking, problem-solving and organizing paragraphs;,(3) Process aproach serves better than product approach to build up their confidence in writing and learn to cooperate with other group members.87 students of Grade 1 from Jiangyin Senior High School participated in the study as subjects. They were divided into two groups, for whom product and process approaches were respectively provided. Both groups were required to take a pretest at the beginning of the experiment to decide on their writing proficiency, and two posttests were given at an interval of about six weeks to reveal the change as exactly as possible. At the same time, two questionnaires were designed and distributed before and after the experiment, mostly for the purpose of examining the changes in the participants with regard to their attitudes towards writing. The two groups were compared in terms of the scores on the tests.The study result shows that the subjects under the instruction of process approach achieve more significant growth in English writing proficiency and interest in writing, build up more awareness of cooperation and confidence in writing, improve their abilities of independent thinking and problem-solving more effectively than those under the product writing instruction. The process approach can greatly cultivate the students' writing habit, remarkably improve their writing proficiency, but it takes a comparatively long period of time to take effect; while the product approach is easy to start and has a quick effect, but it lacks a continuous effect and is not available for all the subjects.But this doesn't mean that we should abandon the product approach. We learn to use writing mechanics, grammatical rules, text structures and so on not for the purpose of writing itself but to express our ideas. If we can learn how to generate and develop our ideas in the process of writing, then we can achieve our final aim, which is communication in the real world. Thus the final products would be more convincing and creative.