A Study Of The Application Of Process-focused Writing Approach To Promote Senior Students' English Writing In Big Class

Although many English teachers in high schools of our country spend a lot of time and energy responding to students' writing, it still seems, due to the large number of students, that their hard work fails to bring good effect. In their teaching practice teachers often have to give concerns about the improvement of students'limited vocabulary and ideas, the proper way of evaluating students writing, the extent of correcting grammatical errors, time shortage , big class size, and the expectation from administrators and parents.English teachers can help their students by providing models and encouraging them to venture their own ideas. They can group students so that students can learn from one another, so that the teachers can lighten the burden on the endless composition correction. Besides, teachers can highlight the common mistakes committed by the students, explain the rules, and give them chances to practice. Comments from the teachers can be used to build rapport between the teacher and the students by opening up the dialogues between these two sides.Writing is an indispensable part of second language acquisition. As an important language skill, English writing teaching is the weakest chain in English teaching process. Writing is a process in which people can express themselves effectively according to their own feelings. Their writing must reflect the communicative function. It is in the writing process that students can improve their writing technique and competence. While traditional writing teaching model regards the teacher as the center, the center position of students always is neglected. The learning process of student is replaced by the teaching process of the teacher.In the reform of education, researchers think that it is necessary to change the present teaching model. Many researchers introduce and advocate the process writing theories originating in the 1970's. It has been proved to be effective for improving writing ability of middle school students.By means of questionnaires and interview, the present study has found that the present method of teaching writing in may Chinese high schools is a teacher-centered approach in which students are the passive recipients of writing knowledge and marks. Teachers can not give instant feedback because of the large size of class. Teaching he writing has often been synonymous with the teaching of grammar or sentence structures. The students can't express in English effectively and thus lose interest gradually. Many educators claim that writing is not a solitary act; rather, it is the result of the interaction among people, contexts and texts. It is a social act.Process approach and product approach are the two most important teaching methods widely used in China. In this thesis, the author will contrast the practical efficiency of process approach and product approach in improving senior high school students' English writing proficiency through experimental research. The study includes three hypotheses:1) Applying process focused writing approach to a large class can raise the students'interest in writing and their sense of participation, which will have a positive effect on students'attitudes towards writing and improve their writing ability.2) Applying process focused writing approach to a large class is more effective in developing students' abilities in thinking, problem-solving and organizing paragraphs;3) Applying process focused writing approach to a large class can help build up students'confidence in writing and learn to cooperate with other group members.138 students of Grade 2 from Wuhai No.10 Middle School of Inner Mongolia participated in the study as subjects. They were divided into two groups, for whom product and process approaches to teaching writing were adopted respectively. 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 the end of the experiment to reveal the change that had taken place. 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.Through pre-and-post questionnaires and interview, it is revealed that process writing has had a positive impact on ESL students' writing attitudes and habits. During writing process, students can discuss with their teacher about the skills in writing. The teacher can in turn get a better perspective on what the students lack for a better writing. It also helps to find out the techniques that students need for writing good compositions. Students can receive positive feedback directly and efficiently. Process writing involves pre-writing work of brainstorming ides and revising the drafts by classmates to gain peer's feedback. This enables the students to understand the purpose of the writing process more profoundly, i. e., to explore, develop, focus, organize, and finally to share ideas with others. Process writing allows students to write an initial draft, make two revisions (one on content, one on structure ) and produce a final copy. Writing knowledge and skills are internalized in the process. Later, they will transfer some of their classroom skills to their individual composing activities. At the same time writing process helps students to develop their communicative competence, as well as the ability to learn from each other via language. As a result, the students are greatly encouraged to participate in writing activities and thus it facilitates the development of their abilities to write in English.The study results show that the subjects under the instruction of process approach achieve more significant growth in English writing proficiency and more 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. In conclusion the process approach can greatly cultivate the students' writing habit, and remarkably improve their writing proficiency,...