An Experimental Study Of College English Writing Teaching Based On Rhetorical Figures

As one of the four basic skills of English, English writing is usually weak for college students. A common misunderstanding between students and teachers is that if students master a certain amount of vocabulary, and correct grammar, they could do well in English writing. However, a large number of students’ writings in every year’s CET are rated "as language needy", "empty contents", "out of focus", "lacking organization and cohesion".Figures of speech are explicit devices of language use for a better effect. Although many people wrongly regard them as only a decoration of language and something we can do without in our English writing, figures of speech, particularly the widely-used ones, do have an immediate effect on improving the effect of English writing. So the current research focuses on the teaching of most-widely used rhetorical figures in English writing. The research intends to explore whether there is a positive effect on improving the college students’awareness and competence of using rhetorical figures in English writing. The current research takes 9 widely-used rhetorical figures for experimental teaching, which is a balanced consideration of the course books they use "New Horizon College English:Reading and Writing (volume 1.2.3) and the appropriateness for their English ability. To be specific, the study is to answer the following two research questions:1) Can rhetorical figures teaching enhance the students’awareness of using rhetorical figures in English writing?2) Can rhetorical figures teaching improve the college students’competence of English writing by using rhetorical figures?The empirical study is conducted among 40 sophomores in Jiang Xi College of Construction whose English levels are not very good. The experimental course is elective course. There is no control class, because there is only one natural class in the elective course. The teaching lasts for two months, and each rhetorical figure will take two teaching unit (45 minutes per one). The experimental teaching takes process approach and particularly values peer-evaluation, teacher’s elicitation and students’ revision. The teaching of each kind of rhetorical figures goes roughly at three steps: teacher’s presentation, students’ practice at sentence level, and students’ practice at the passage level.The research mainly adopts questionnaire, test, experimental teaching and case analysis. Questionnaire is divided into pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire. The purpose of pre-questionnaire is to learn students’ self-evaluation in English writing and their awareness of rhetorical figures; post-questionnaire is to know students’ changes of awareness of rhetorical figures, and also their self-evaluation in English writing. Through the comparison of the scores and the numbers of rhetorical figures used in pretest and posttest, the study is to verify the effect of the experimental teaching.The experimental teaching emphasizes process writing. Case analysis is the main characteristics of the study. It employs qualitative analysis to interpret the students’ output in the process of the experimental teaching and also the students’ compositions in the pretest and posttest.The following are the main findings of the study:1) The analysis of the pre-questionnaire and the post-questionnaire reveals that the teaching of rhetorical figures can improve the students’ knowledge of rhetorical figures and can also enhance the students’ awareness of using rhetorical figures in English writing; The comparison of the number and range of rhetorical figures used in the pretest and posttest further proves the positive effect in enhancing the students’ ability of application of rhetorical figures in English writing.2) The comparison of the scores in pretest and posttest reveals that the teaching of rhetorical figures is effective in improving the students’ English writing.3) The qualitative case analysis vividly demonstrates that the scope and appropriation of the use of the rhetorical figures has been improved.The research is carried out from an innovative perspective:the common rhetorical figures. The research has application value.