A Study Of Dictogloss In Improving High School Students' English Writing Ability

As the overall ability of utilizing English is emphasized in Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standards, writing competence, as the most important part of it, should be taken seriously. Since the implementation of curriculum reform is going on, the proportion of writing test has increased in the college entrance examination, which makes it more important and more urgent to improve the students'writing ability. This is further emphasized in Senior High School English learning and teaching by New Curriculum Standard. But the current situation of English writing in Senior High School is urgent. Aimed to change the current situation and discover the better way to improve the students'writing ability, dictogloss is considered as a good attempt.Dictogloss is a text-based, task-based and learner-centered teaching procedure to help learners to focus on both meaning and form and use the target language on a text basis.It aims to develop both receptive skill and productive skill.Dictogloss originates from traditional dictation, but in fact it is quite distinct from dictation in both procedure and objectives. In dictogloss, a short text is read at normal speed to the learners.As the text is being read, the learners jot down familiar words and phrases. Then working in small groups, the learners pool their'battered texts'and strive to reconstruct a version of the text from their shared resources. Each group of learners produces their own reconstructed version, aiming at grammatical accuracy and textual cohesion but not at replicating the original text. Finally, the whole class reconvenes and the groups'versions are analyzed and corrected.Dictogloss is believed to be a reasonably powerful and effective teaching and learning method. Some empirical studies are conducted on dictogloss. Kowal and Swain's study (1994) shows that dictogloss does encourage students to move from the semantic processing dominant in comprehension to the grammatical processing needed for production. At home, Gao Xiaofang (Gao,1998) and Zhang Hongxia (Zhang,2004) advocate dictogloss in TEFL;Liang Hongmei's study (Liang, 2004) reveals the effectiveness of dictogloss in creating conditions for SLA. Based on the previous empirical studies, this paper attempts to investigate whether this method promotes learner to focus on meaning and form and whether it has any effect on improving the high school students'English writing ability.The study is to do an experiment with two groups (CG and EG) of subjects in Senior Two in Hui Min Middle School in Huhhot. Various forms of data are collected through writing tests,questionnaires, etc. The data is analyzed and then a conclusion is drawn. In this way, this study will attempt to investigate whether this method promotes learner to reduce grammar mistakes, improving the learners'level of cohesion and coherence in writing, and whether it has any effect on improving the high school students'English writing ability.