The Application Of The Process-product Approach To English Writing Teaching In High Schools

Writing, as one of the four language skills for communication, can help students master the language effectively. It can also reflect the students' ability of using language objectively.As "New Curriculum Standard" has put new requirements on students' writing, it plays a more and more important part in the English teaching. However, writing remains to be the item that students find most difficult. As for the teachers, they also complain the heavy workload of correcting students' writing papers, which conversely prevents them making any change of the present low-efficiency phenomenon. So it's quite necessary for us to make some explorations on how to teach English writing effectively.In order to improve the students' writing abilities and arouse their interest in writing, this paper puts forward that the product-process approach should be applied to the writing teaching practice, which combines the strengths of process-oriented approach and product-oriented approach. This dissertation tries to deal with the following three questions:1. Can the process-product approach motivate the students to write more actively and have more confidence in writing?2. Can students writing competence, both in form and in content, be improved through the process-product approach?3. Can the students still write better in a timed composition?The researcher carried out the study in a senior middle school in Guangdong Province. Two classes of Senior One students with the same English proficiencies were randomly chosen as the experimental class and control class. The study lasted five months with the experimental class taught with the product-process approach while the control class product approach. The following instruments are used in this study: two questionnaires before and after the experiment to find the students' attitudes and interest in writing; the two compositions in the mid-term and final examination as the measures of their performance. The researcher collected some relevant data and analyzed them, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.The results of the research show that the students in the experimental class have not only changed their attitudes to English writing, but also gained greater confidence and improved their interest in it. The new approach is helpful to the students in improving their writing ability and the ability of using language as well. So the process-product approach is an effective way of improving English writing teaching and the students' writing ability.