A Study On Dialogue-Based English Writing Teaching In Vocational College

In recent years, great changes have taken place in English writing class in China. From the productive approach to the process approach, and to the hottest genre approach, English teachers have paid attention to the English reform in order to construct a democratic and student-centered learning atmosphere. But most of our English writing class is teacher-centered, and students receive knowledge passively. This phenomenon is much serious in vocational college; students' writing performance is far from requirement and satisfaction. Students concern more about vocabulary and grammar. Most of their compositions are practical ones, which they are not interested in. Therefore, students are not interested in writing and seldom participate in the class activities. The only way of writing for them is imitating the essay model and few of them care about expressing of their thought. In order to solve these problems, this study attempts to apply dialogue into the English writing process in order to stimulate students'motivation and interests through the dialogue.The thesis is made up of five chapters. First, the background, aim and significant of the study are introduced. Then literature review on dialogue and dialogical teaching, as well as writing teaching approaches are provided in chapter Two. The study proposes the dialogue-based English writing teaching based on the theories of Interaction Hypothesis and Cooperative Learning. The research questions are:what are the effects of dialogue-based English writing teaching on students'writing performance? What area the changes that students perceive to contribute to these effects? In all,40 students participated in this study. They were freshman of four different majors from a vocational college in Foshan, Guangdong Province. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are employed. The data collection methods include questionnaire, interview with students and students' reflective diaries. Data analysis shows that dialogue-based writing teaching has positive effects on students' writing.First, the comparison of students' prior and post writing tests indicates that students'writing performance has been improved; second, data collection from the questionnaires shows that positive changes in motivation, attitude, belief, social relationship and critical thinking skills have improved. Specifically, students have more interest and passion in English writing. Their anxiety is lowered and self-confidence is increased. According to the group work, the relationship between students is improved, including in sense of cooperation, friendship, mutual trust, team spirit and communication skills. After one term's practice, students'critical thinking skill has also been cultivated.Although there are many positive responses to dialogue-based writing teaching, difficulties are also observed in the implementation of this method, the application of which in the writing classroom still needs further research and betterment.