An Application Research Of Process Genre Approach To Teaching Writing To Chinese Efl Students In A Senior High School

Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four basic skills in English learning, among which writing is considered to be the most complex and difficult by the students. Additionally, in China, writing plays a vital role in the college entrance examination as well. Thus what the New English Curriculum strives to accomplish is far more than just help students to learn English. Undoubtedly, it is necessary for the senior high school English teachers to lay enough emphasis on the guidance of composition and find an effective way of teaching to facilitate their students to have a right attitude towards English writing at present and cultivate them possessing an integrated ability to face the challenges they may meet in their National College Entrance Examination. Therefore, English teachers attach great importance to teaching writing.The Process Genre Approach has been highly thought of ever since the end of last century by the researcher both abroad and home and the application researches have been widely launched in the field of English teaching. And this research applies the Process Genre Approach to teaching writing to Chinese EFL students in a senior high school, hoping this approach can significantly improve the EFL students’ writing scores and change their attitude towards English writing. At the same time, the researcher also wants to find the problems of the Process Genre Approach in the process of nativization.To check whether the Process Genre Approach has an effect on inspiring students’ interest in writing and fostering their ability to write, a research was carried out to test the three following questions:1) Does the Process Genre Approach significantly improve the EFL students’ writing scores?2) Does the Process Genre Approach improve their writing strategies?3) What effect does it bring on the EFL students’ attitudes towards English writing?The research lasted 16 weeks, which was from September, 2014 to December, 2014 in Senior One of Shanhaiguan No.1 Middle School. Class One was chosen as the Experimental Class under guidance of the Process Genre Approach while Class Three was chosen as the Control Class where the Product Approach was conducted. They were all taught by the author and are roughly of the same level in English capability.Before the experiment, the author made an investigation by using a questionnaire to see the students’ attitude, genre awareness, strategies and demands about English writing. Following the questionnaire, a pre-writing test was conducted by using the topic in the National College Entrance Examination in 2013 to see whether the two classes were equivalent to each other. Four months later, a post-writing test that used the topic in the National College Entrance Examination in 2014 and a questionnaire which was the same to the former questionnaire were carried out to the same subjects involved in the experiment, aiming to confirm the changes of their attitudes towards the Process Genre Approach, interest and strategies in English writing. Finally, the author randomly chose 10 subjects as interviewees in the experimental Class, with the purpose of knowing more about their subjective opinions on the Process Genre Approach.The data and the scores of the students’ writing were analyzed by SPSS(19.0) and the major findings of the experiment indicate that the Process Genre Approach can significantly improve the EFL students’ writing scores.