An Application Of Recitation And Imitation To Writing Class At Vocational School

In China, when students learn English, they need to master the four basic skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, writing is a more difficult skill than the other three skills, which is also the weakest link in English teaching of vocational school. The proficiency of English writing directly reflects students’ English level. How to develop English writing skill has been a hot and difficult topic in the current researches. The English writing level of vocational school students is commonly lower and many students have little interest in English writing, even afraid of it. As far as teachers are concerned, they do not pay enough attention to the teaching of English writing owing to rich content and limited class hour. After lots of literature, related theories, and experiments about English writing have been studied thoroughly, the recitation and imitation method has been raised based on the theories of the second language acquisition and psycholinguistics.The following hypotheses are put forward in this thesis:1.The recitation and imitation method can improve vocational school students’ English writing. There is a positive relationship between them.2.The students have positive attitudes towards the recitation and imitation method.3.Recitation and imitation contributes in some degree to their increasing interest in English writing. Related hypotheses were tested through a teaching experiment and a questionnaire.90students from Tianjin Urban and Rural Economic School participated in the experiment as subjects. The recitation and imitation method was conducted in the experimental class, while traditional teaching method was used in the control class. To investigate the effect of the recitation and imitation method, questionnaires, pre-test and post-test were carried out before and after the teaching experiment. The obtained data were analyzed by the computer software SPSS17.0. Moreover, interviews were conducted in class or after class in the process of the experiment and after post-test with the purposes of helping the teacher to learn about students’ attitudes and response to the recitation and imitation method.The experimental results show that:the scores of the students after employing the recitation and imitation method were much higher, which indicates the students in the experimental class make much more progress in writing skills and achievements by using the method. The recitation and imitation method is a practical and effective way to improve students’ ability to write compositions in English. In addition, results of the questionnaires and interviews suggest that the students hold a positive attitude to the recitation and imitation method, and that the recitation and imitation method really contributes in some degree to their increasing interest in English writing. However, due to the limitations in class hours, sample size and researcher’s ability, this research has some deficiencies and shortcomings. It is expected that enough concern could be aroused to the topic of how to improve the English writing skill of vocational school students.