The Application Of The Process Genre Approach To The Teaching Of English Writing In Senior High Schools

There is no doubt that writing teaching is an important part of in English teaching though it’s very difficult. With the development of the new curriculum reform, senior English teaching methods, teaching process and strategies have been significantly improved, but the situation and effect of practical English writing teaching in senior high schools is worrying. According to relevant statistics in the past five years in Zhejiang Province, the writing average of the college entrance examination is less than 15 points of 30 points total score. Many students show a very negative attitude towards English writing, and the writing ability has been improved so slowly that many students want to give up. The domestic and foreign experts have a variety of ways for the improvement of writing using, such as, product approach, process approach and genre approach. Although these methods play certain role, their drawbacks are more and more obvious. Badger and White put forward "process genre approach", striving to make the product approach, the process approach and the genre approach combined, and showing the advantages of the three approaches. This writing style emphasizes that writing is a means of communication restricted by the social context and communicative purpose. The teaching approach focuses on the writing process, generic requirements and students’ self-regulated learning and mutual cooperation in the process of writing, which meets the new curriculum standards. Since the teaching method was introduced in the domestic, many researchers have put forward the teaching procedures but they are mainly applicable to the university English writing teaching.Based on the interview and the questionnaire survey of the teachers and students from Fengming Senior High School and the Process Genre Approach, the author improved the teaching steps which are divided into six steps:1) to analyze a model essay and decide its genre; 2) to read another essay and imitate analyzing its genre characteristics; 3) to discuss in groups and imitate writing an essay; 4) to conclude writing rules and write another essay independently; 5) to feed back information among the peers and teachers then revise; 6) to be evaluated by teachers and edit and publish. These six steps are employed in three different genres, using pre-test and post-test in the experimental class while in the control class, the traditional way: reciting and practice is applied. The data of writing results, questionnaire survey and interview are collected and analyzed through SPSS.16 and Excel.The experimental results show that the Process Genre Approach can improve students’ English writing level more easily than the traditional teaching method, though their advancement in writing varies from person to person because of their different English levels. The approach is to help the students form a positive attitude towards English writing:through the six steps developing good writing habits; cultivating the writing genre awareness; through peer coaching, more active participation in the process of writing. In the traditional writing process, the teacher plays a more important role than students while the Process Genre Approach advocates student-centered strategy, reflecting the students’ initiative in writing.But during the whole experiment, some problems were also found which should be promoted through further study.