Application Of Text Recitation In Teaching Writing In Senior High School

As a comparatively complicated and difficult activity in English language learning, writing can commendably illustrate students’ language competence, and thus teaching writing has so far become one of the most difficult aspects in teaching activities. As stated in The New English Curriculum Standards in High School, the ability of appropriate structuring, the ability of logic thinking, and the ability of proper language communication are required in English writing of high school students. However, it is the fact that the English writing competence of high school students fails to wholesomely reach the writing requirements regulated by the norm of English Curriculum. In other words, there exists a great gap between the two.Based on Krashen’s input hypothesis, Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis, Mc Leod’s Restructuring, and Swain’s output hypothesis, the thesis analyzes two relationships: text recitation and language input, and text recitation and English writing, in which text recitation in high school English writing teaching is highlighted and applied. To fulfill the task, the writer makes use of research methods to encourage students to consolidate words and expressions by making sentences. And the focus of the methods is on text recitation so that the ability of familiarizing and utilizing language can be enhanced. Besides, selected from English test papers of National Matriculation English Test(NMET), the topics are related to what students have recited and provided for them to practice. By doing so, the writer hopes to enhance the purpose of respecting the relevance of language contents being learnt and written.In order to verify the effectiveness of text recitation in teaching writing in senior high school, the writer adopts both qualitative and quantitative research to conduct an experiment which lasted around eight months. Specifically, the writer chooses two classes of Grade One in No.2 Senior School in Pingliang City, Gansu Province, as experimental class(EC) and controlled class(CC), to which the common method and text-recitation method for teaching writing are employed correspondingly. And before and after the experiment, the writer interviews teachers and students and analyzes the data collected. In addition, in order to find answers and supports to the research hypotheses, the writer conducts writing tests for students before, in and after the experiment, and analyzes the grades and contents of compositions. The research hypotheses and questions are listed as below:1. What attitudes do teachers and students have towards text recitation used in teaching writing in senior high school?2. How does text recitation influence teaching writing in senor high school?3. Why does text recitation generate these influences during teaching writing in senior high school?By analyzing, the research results demonstrate:1. Most of the teachers and students in EC hold a positive view towards text recitation used in teaching writing in senior high school. That is to say, most of them support this method and think they can benefit from it. However there are few students and teachers object to it because they take it as a rigid way of learning.2. Text recitation plays a positive role in teaching writing in senior high school. By analyzing the figures of the compositions in the post-test, students’ writing ability in EC is improved impressively and their writing anxiety is decreased.3. The reasons that text recitation generates these influences mentioned in point 1 and 2 are listed as below: a. text recitation helps students organize their thoughts and ideas logically; b. text recitation enables students to accumulate vocabulary, helps students write freely and smoothly and reduces grammar mistakes; c. text recitation facilitates students to use cohesive and transitional expressions in writings, which sound more native-like; d. teachers also become more confident and competent in teaching performance.In short, text recitation is beneficial to improve senior students’ ability of utilizing vocabulary, expressions, sentence patterns, and structure of their writings. It can arouse students’ interest of learning English. Above all, the initial purpose of enhancing English writing ability will be achieved.