An Empirical Study Of The Application Of Process-oriented Mode To The Teaching Of English Writing In Rural High Schools

This paper is a study of an effective mode of teaching English writing in rural senior middle schools in China based on the process-focused approach.English plays an important role in the communication of global politics, economy, culture and technology. Accordingly, the four skills of English, i.e. speaking, listening, reading and writing, have received special attention. However, the teaching of English writing has been neglected in most rural middle schools in China under the influence of the test-centered education and other traditional factors. As a result, the students'ability to write in English has remained low. In order to improve it and, furthermore, to find out a teaching mode of English writing in rural senior middle schools, I have done an experiment in applying the process-focused approach to the teaching of writing in senior middle schools designed by some scholars of Beijing Normal University.In the first place, the paper represents the teaching requirements of English writing in senior middle schools by the new curriculum standards in China and states the great problems in rural senior middle schools in English-writing and considers it necessary to adopt a new method of teaching English-writing.Next, in the literature review, the paper expounds the definition, theoretical basis, teaching procedures and current research.The third part is the body of the paper--the experiment, including the purpose, subjects, method and process of the experiment. The subjects are 130 students from two classes in Grade Two in No.2 Middle School of Dengzhou County, Henan Province. During the four-month instructional intervention, the teacher carried out the process approach in the experimental class. Three instruments were used in the research, i.e. an questionnaire, an interview and the scores of the subjects'compositions in three big exams.In the fourth part, the author analyses the results of the experiment. Before the experiment, the two classes are at about the same level in every aspect. The data collected after the experiment show that the writing interest, motivation, confidence and ability of the students in the experimental class were all higher than those of the students in the control class.The next part is a discussion of the findings of the study. The results indicate that the process-centered approach can change the students'attitude towards English-writing, raise their motivation, reinforce their confidence and finally improve their writing ability. The approach, a guide to the teaching of English writing, which includes five stages, provides a new perspective for the teaching reform in senior middle schools.