A Study Of Process Writing In English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

Hymes (1972,281) holds the view that grammaticality possibility, feasibility, appropriateness and performance are the keys to communicative competence. At present, writing in senior high school English class has seldom been regarded as a means of communication but a textual product, and an orderly arrangement of elements according to grammatical rules or an imitation of a sample. When writing in our English class is totally different from writing in reality, problems occur. Students finish writing only as their homework or tests under the pressure of time limit, and in unsupported conditions of learning, so "students’texts are vague, general and meaningless. Moreover, most students have little knowledge about genre and culture"(Yin2007,109). As to the assessment of writing, Wang Qiang (2000,137-142) points out that "teachers tend to overlook the quality of ideas in students’writing and only comment on the quality of the language." Teachers spend several days picking up students’grammar errors and writing comments on their misuse of grammatical rules, which discourage students’passion for writing, and receive little attention from them. Hyland(1990,297-285) finds that "so much time and efforts devoted proves to be less effective than expected, sometimes in vain." When there is a doubt whether we focus on the product of writing or the writing process itself, the process approach of teaching writing draws more and more attention. Now that it is proved that the traditional product-oriented approach neither stimulates students’ interests and motivation in writing nor effectively promotes them to make progress, can process approach take its place?To confirm the feasibility and effectivity of Process Writing adapted to senior high schools, this paper probes into the theoretical basis of the process writing approach, its main features and the domestic and overseas studies.Writing is the outcome of processes that are not completely linear, but rather cyclical and recursive. Regarded as "a vehicle for the discovery and communication of meaning"(Kepner1991,306),"Writing is also a process of discovering ideas and making meaning itself, rather than emphasizing the importance of a final product"(Zamel1983,165-187). Through meaningful and free self-expression, students develop their proficiency and free imagination.Writing is a process that involves complicated cognitive operations (Flower1980,31-35). Atkinson (2003,3-15) also said that " the period of L2writing instruction and research focused primarily on writing as a cognitive or internal, multi-staged process, and in which by far the major dynamic of learning was through doing, with the teacher taking (in some-sometimes imagined-senses) a background role." On the other hand, Hildyard (1992,1528-1540) states that,"writing is a process of constructive problem-solving, and through writing practices, students develop thinking and writing skills."Writing is also defined as a social and cultural act."A social context of student conferencing" is emphasized during the various non-linear writing stages (Bereiter1986,259-282). Hayes (1996,5) regards writing as "a social artifact carried out in a social setting.""What we write, how we write, and who we write to is shaped by social convention and by our history of social interaction." Specifically speaking, the process approach highlights some collaborative pair or group writing, group discussion, reviews and evaluation on the basis of pairs or groups. Writing is a social interaction between writers and readers. The readers of student writers are not only teachers and classmates but also a potential audience.The process writing is characterized by the following points:A. free writing about whatever interests the students, either in a journal or as a way of "exploring a subject";B. opportunities to revise and rework writing;C. high levels of interaction among students;D. writing for audiences of peersE. focus on the process of writing that leads to the final written product;F. helping students writers to understand their own composing process;G. individual conferences between teacher and student during the process of composition.(Brown1994,142)There are also some disadvantages:(1) the process approach overemphasizes psychological factors in writing and ignores important influence of context, especially of class, gender, ethnicity, the writer’s experiences and background, his or her sense of self, of others, of situation and of purpose (Hyland2005,29-30). Flower and Hayes (1981,365-87) also suggest that the process of writing is influenced by the task-environment and the writer’s long-term memory. (2)Process writing is time-consuming, which is not adaptable to text-oriented writing and time-limited writing.(3) Students should have a good knowledge of English.(Li Junzhen2003,154)(4) It’s difficult for teachers to hold a editing conference with each students.(Li Sen2000,23)(5) The efficiency of revisions and rewriting is actually very low.(Shi Xiaoling2001,23)(6) Most of students are un-confident in their products and distrustful for other students, so they reject peer-conference, peer-editing and peer-evaluation.(Wang Jun2007,116)To apply the process approach to writing teaching class, many researches are carried out at home and abroad.Some researchers argue about the relation between product and produce.The traditional product approach focuses on "one-shot correct writing" for practicing language (Cheung1999,55-75) and a "one-shot effort" by the teacher to evaluate the students’ compositions (Pennington and Cheung1995,20). However, Harmer (2003,257) states that,"instead of the aim of a task and the final product, attention is paid to the various stages that any piece of writing goes through in a process approach". However, other researchers lay importance on both processes and products of writing. Leki (1991,8-11) states that,"the process approach is an approach to teaching writing that places more emphasis on the stages of the writing process than on the final product". Brown (1994,142) points out that,"product is the final destination while process is the way to reach it; ignorance of either will lead to failure".Another question is to focus on form or meaning. In the Expressivist view, good writing does not reflect application of rules but the writer’s imagination (Hyland2005,23)."There is little evidence to show that syntactic complexity or grammatical accuracy is either the principal features of writing development or the best measures of good writing. Many students can construct syntactically accurate sentences and yet are unable to produce appropriate written texts" says Hyland (2005,9-10). Zamel (1985,86) points out that "teachers of ESL, and EFL writing overwhelmingly view themselves as language teachers rather than writing teachers." Teng (1993,65) states that,"grammar is overemphasized in the writing class in China, ignoring other elements of writing." Cheng Jingying (1994,119) also realizes that most teachers focus on correction of grammatical errors and regard writing class as the extension grammar class.There are also a few researchers who strongly emphasize the importance of form in the process approach. Yates and Kenkel (2002,46) state that L2writing instruction cannot be divorced from L2language instruction because it is the L2students’lack of knowledge about the language to achieve their writing purposes which makes responding to actual L2writing so difficult, yet so important. Wu (2000,217) states that in the process approach, the instruction of vocabulary and expressions related to the topic is very important, we can focus on meaning while scarify basic knowledge such as grammar, form, vocabulary and punctuation and he disagrees that students leave mechanical weaknesses or errors for the later stages of revision and editing.The last question causes researchers’argument is how to instruct genre in writing process. Expressionists advise teachers not to assign a topic, impose students’views, or give models. Imitation is unavailable. The cognitive view of the process approach is that writing is a non-linear, recursive, exploratory and generative process. In addition, there are various models, but the convention and the style of the genre differ, and no single model can capture all writing contexts or be applied to every type of writing. It is highly useful for students, esp. students at low levels to study texts in the genre they are going to be writing. Writing is a form of "reproduction" and imitation is only a first stage, however, designed as much to inform as to enforce adherence to strict genre rules (Harmer2003,257).The second chapter generalizes the present situation of writing teaching in senior high schools and emphasizes needs to apply Process Writing. With the promulgation of New Curriculum Criteria, and the modification of College Entrance Examination, more and more senior school English teachers are aware of the disadvantages of traditional product approach which overemphasizes vocabulary, grammar, structure and form.While teachers explore new writing teaching model adapted to New Standard English which stresses the principles of topic, function, genre and task in, there is a growing concern about the process approach, which encourages students learn to write through writing at a student-centered class.Many researches have been carried out proving that the process approach is effective for college students in China, but few researchers focus on the writing class in senior schools, so the author undertakes an experiment in a second-grade class in Huaxi High School from September2011to September2012.The third chapter is about this experiment on Process Writing in English writing teaching in senior high schools, which covers the following questions:(1) Can this approach be applied to the writing teaching class at senior high schools in China?(2) Will it be acceptable, feasible or effective?(3) Which model is suitable for the wiring class in senior schools?This chapter also explores the purpose of process writing, the learning strategies applied to it and the model designed for it.The purpose of process writing at senior high schools covers language knowledge, language skills, communicative competence, cultural awareness and learning strategies. The one which teachers sometimes ignore is learning strategies. Students learn and experiment various strategies unconsciously during the writing process, such as memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies and then search for one that is personally effective.Taking the five objectives into consideration, the author designs the model of process writing according to the principles of input and output, and undertakes it for a month in the second-grade class. Based on the observation at class, interview with students, and feedback from students’compositions, the model is adjusted and then adopted to the writing teaching class for nine months.The sequence of activities in process writing is as follows:(1)InputSecond-language writers may be disadvantaged not only by limited linguistic knowledge and the incomplete or inaccurate text so far; but also by unawareness of the social and cultural uses of writing in the second language.(Weigle2011,36) So both the text so far and social and cultural factors are important resources of input to students. Williams (2007,5,10)explored the importance of reading as a way of input "because it provides L2language learners with exposure to vocabulary, spelling, structure, and usage". In return,"writing as a way of output calls L2learners attention to things they don’t know and can’t do, perhaps prompting them to focus on these items in subsequent input". In English writing teaching in senior high schools, the teacher creates an authentic situation for writing based on the topic of each Module in New Standard English, and provides students with abundant resources. What’s more, students are encouraged to search more information about the topic on the Internet or by group-discussion and pair-discussion.(2) Pre-writingThere are varied ways to organize the class into groups, according the students’English level, sex and the purposes of activities. In groups or in pairs, students learn to stimulate thoughts, generate ideas and choose a topic by fast-writing, free-writing, questioning, clustering, listing and so on (White, Arndt1991,17).(3) The first draftingStudents write down their ideas following their writing lists or outlines. Students may write impromptu in class when time is limited; or write out of class at their own pace. They may write either alone or in a group. Above all, the key to the first draft is the recursion and cycling of planning, drafting and revising. When making the first draft, the original ideas are then refined, developed and transformed. Meanwhile, students rethink, rearrange, rewrite and revise their articles.(4) Peer conferencing and editingThe process approach emphasizes a social context of student conferencing during the various non-linear writing stages (Bereiter1986,259-282). Students discuss together on their first drafts and give each other feedbacks on content, language, structure and genre from the standpoint of real readers. In the beginning, students trend to dwell on the low level information (how to spell a word, whether a preposition is correct). Gradually with teachers’ interventional assistance, students prioritize the high level information (how to re-organize the development of the essay, what main message is to be communicated by a paragraph)(Chandraegararan, A.2007,2-3)。(5) The second draftingStudents rewrite based on the feedback from team numbers and then hand in the second draft to the teacher.(6) Teacher revising and editingTeachers read students’ compositions, mark correction codes, give scores or grades and write comments.(7) The third draftingStudents rewrite based on the feedback from the teacher and create their projects.(8) Presentation and evaluationLearning groups can apply different ways to present their products of writing, such as oral reports, performance, speech, posters, brochures, story-books and PPT piles.Students actively engage in producing their own thoughts in English during the writing process, so evaluations are carried out on both the process of writing and the products. When setting the criterion, teachers would better consider when, who, how to evaluate. There are various ways of evaluations, such as self-evaluation, group-evaluation, teacher evaluation, student-student evaluation, the whole class evaluation.Above all, the writing process is not strictly sequential but recursive. It includes cognitive activities like planning, formulating and revising. Each activity can occur at any moment during the writing process. After writing, students look back at their writing process based on their three drafts, comments and evaluation from other students and their teacher. The reflection after writing is of vital importance to next writing process.With the adaptation of the renewed model, the author undertook a survey and experiment at a second-grade class at Huaxi High School for nine months. The participants were52students of an age, different English proficiency and various backgrounds.In September1,2011, a questionnaire was conducted with52students to find out their attitudes towards writing itself and writing process. In addition, the author averaged the writing part scores of52students in five important exams during the second semester in grade one.In September1,2012,52students completed the same questionnaires again and the author collected the average of the writing part scores in five important exams during this one-year study. In August,2012, the author interviewed three students representing the most, the medical and the least proficient groups in this class. In addition, their compositions before and after the experiment were compared and analyzed at the aspect of language, grammar, structure and awareness of readers.The author collected quantitative data (comparison between pre and post questionnaires and between averages of writing part scores before and after the research), and qualitative data (analysis of sample writings and interviewsThe analysis of data for the study covers two parts:(1) eliciting questionnaires (2) analyzing written samples, supplemented by interviews.By comparison, the average writing score of the subjects increased by8.108%at the end of the research, which proved that process writing helped to improve the students’ writing competence in senior high schools. A positive conclusion can be drawn that the process approach is acceptable, feasible and effective in writing teaching in senior high schools. On the other hand, based on the analysis, some adjustments should be made to the future writing teaching.(1) Students tend to learn from other students samples, but they are reluctant to present and analyze their own compositions in class. In this case, more encouragement and stimulation should be given by teachers.(2) Students are adjusted to peer-conference and editing, but more guidance and assistance should be offered by teachers, especially role-assignment.(3) Students regard teachers’feedback more reliable, so besides grading, scoring and marking with correction codes, teachers had better write comments or hold a face to face conference with students.(4) Because of the higher requirements in the criteria of writing, more students are not satisfied with their products, in which situation teachers are supposed to highlight their advance, encourage students and assist them in composing satisfactory works.(5) The least proficient group should be paid more attention to. Individualizing instruction and one-on-one discussion with teachers after class are of vital importance to them. Besides, they are also encouraged to turn to the most proficient students in the same group for help.This paper is divided into five parts. Introduction provides a comprehensive view of this study, including the background, necessity, questions to be solved. The first chapter generalizes the theoretical basis, definition, models, related researches and features of process writing. The second chapter discusses the present situation of writing teaching class, and stresses the necessity to conduct a study on process writing in English writing teaching in senior high schools. The third chapter explores the purpose of process writing, the learning strategies implied in the writing process, and the sequence of activities and prsents a one-year study conducted at a grade-two class of a senior high school, by comparing a pre-test and a post-test and through questionnaires and interviews. The conclusion drawn from the analysis of the quantitative data and qualitative data and some advice is also offered for future writing teaching.