The Application Of The Product-process 8-step Approach To English Writing Instruction In Junior High School

Writing is an important skill in English learning; however, it is not paid enough attention in junior high schools due to various reasons. Nowadays, it is common in junior high schools that the students lack time and experience in English writing and they have insufficient interest in writing as well. It obstructs students’comprehensive development of English skills. Even many graduates of juniors are not qualified in writing by the Shanghai Primary and High School Curriculum Standard. Therefore, a growing number of researchers focus their eyes on English writing and discover ways to adopt some new teaching methods like process-oriented approach, together with the traditional product-oriented approach. Surly, new methods bring some good results, but their demerits are also found by the researchers. By now, there is no perfect teaching method to English writing. In this thesis, the status of English writing in Chinese junior high schools and the contrast of two main teaching methods are stated. Then the researcher finds that it is indispensable to find out a more effective teaching method which can make the best of both approaches. Hence, based on Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, Cooperative Language Learning, Communication Theory, Product Approach and Process Approach, the researcher put forward the Product-process 8-step Approach to English Writing and put it into teaching.The research tries to answer the following two questions:(1) Can Product-process 8-step approach perform better in arousing junior high students’English writing interest than process approach or product approach? (2) Can Product-process 8-step approach perform better in improving junior high students’English writing skills than process approach and product approach? So the researcher selected 90 students from 3 parallel Grade Seven classes of Jiading Nanxiang Middle School, a common public junior high school as research subjects. The experimental groups are taught to write with Product-process 8-step Approach while the controlled group 1 write with traditional product approach as usual and the controlled group 2 with process approach, i pretest and posttest and questionnaire are used. The collected data are analyzed and major findings are made as follows:(1) Compared with Process Approach and Product Approach, the Product-process 8-step Approach can be more effective in arousing students’ interest in English writing compared with the Product Approach and the Product Approach; (2) Compared with Process Approach and Product Approach, the Product-process 8-step Approach is more effective in improving students’English writing skills.