A Study On The Applicability Of The Process-Oriented Approach In The Teaching Of Non-English Major’s Writing

Writing is not a single, simple and product-oriented process but a continuous processinvolving reflection, improvement, progress and achievements. However, to a great extent,influenced by the philosophy of examination-oriented education, final product is put moreweight in the teaching practice while the development of writing skills is somehow neglectedand ignored. The product-oriented approach that excessively focuses on the final productmeets the requirement of the examination-oriented education. Hence, this approach to writingis so widespread and prevalent in teaching practice. This causes teachers and students neglectthe writing process in which students can cultivate and strengthen their interests in Englishwriting as well as their communicative competence that are both major objectives of collegeEnglish teaching and a driving force that entails hard work on the side of students.On the basis of reviewing literature materials on teaching methodology, the authordiscovers that the process-oriented approach, as a teaching model, can make up for thedeficiencies of the product-oriented approach on a large scale. The design of the research aimsto test its reliability and validity in teaching practice. Specifically, this study addresses thefollowing three questions:First, in teaching college English writing, why should we implement the process-orientedapproach?Second, compared with the traditional writing approach, can process-oriented approachbetter improve students’ writing proficiency?Third, in teaching practice, how can teachers carry out the process-oriented approach?Seventy freshmen, majoring in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry of LiaoningShihua University, were chosen as subjects in this empirical study. Two questionnaires,pre-test and post-test as well as three writing exercises were employed as instruments. Theresults of the questionnaires were presented in the form of percentage and the data of pre-testand post-test were processed by SPSS19.0and were presented under the help of independentsample t-test and paired sample t-test. The results of the experiment verify the author’shypothesis: the process-oriented approach enhances students’ motivation and interest, raisestheir confidence and obviously changes their attitude toward writing. The teaching model(including leading students to understand the subject, modeling, brainstorming, drafting,peers’ evaluating, re-writing and teacher’s evaluating) is effective in promoting writingproficiency. This research contains five chapters, and they uncover as follows. Chapter One brieflydescribes the background, aim and structure of the study. Chapter Two, through a comparisonof the merits and demerits between product-oriented approach and process-oriented approach,puts forward the advocacy of the process-oriented writing approach and states the theoreticalframework of the research. The third chapter makes a concrete description of the proposedresearch, including research questions, subjects, instruments and detailed procedures. In thefourth chapter, the data obtained and collected from the experiment are analyzed andinterpreted and the results of the experiment work out. Chapter Five serves as the conclusionof the whole research. Based on the research results, the author summarizes the deficiency ofthe experiment, points out the limitations of the process-oriented approach and offers sometips for future teaching practice in teaching college English writing.