Exploring The Relationship Between The Length Approach And English Writing Self-efficacy Of Senior High School Students

English, as a global lingua franca, has been playing a more and more essential role in world communication and school education. How to improve senior high school students’ English writing abilities is one of key points in senior high school English teaching. For a long time, English teachers have focused their most attention on the teaching of English knowledge or reading and listening practice, rather than speaking and writing practice. Some of them even hold the erroneous idea that students’ English writing abilities can be promoted gradually as long as they do enough reading. Meanwhile, students lack a proper understanding in English writing and opportunities for English writing practice are not adequate. A large number of senior high school students are afraid of writing, which causes tremendous stress and pressure for them. Although more and more researchers and scholars have devoted themselves in the study of English teaching and learning, the fact is that the present English teaching and learning, especially English writing, is far from satisfactory. The present English writing studies mainly concern on writing skills or writing methods, not bringing enough attention to students’ cognitive psychology.From the perspective of cognitive psychology, the thesis adopts the method of the Length Approach, follows the theory of self-efficacy, and aims at enhancing students’ English writing interests and improving present situation of English writing. Based on the previous successful studies on the Length Approach, and positive effects of English writing self-efficacy on improving English writing achievements, the study focuses on exploring the relationship between the Length Approach and English writing self-efficacy of the senior high school students. The study aims at answering the following three questions:1) What’s the status quo of senior high school students’ English writing self-efficacy? And what are the factors that influence students’ writing self-efficacy?2) What is the relationship between students’ perception on the Length Approach and their English writing self-efficacy?3) How does the Length Approach affect students’English writing self-efficacy? And what are the specific ways?In order to answer these research questions, questionnaires and an interview were conducted in this study.50 students from a key senior high school in Shanxi Province participated in the study. "The Length Approach Questionnaire Investigation" and "Senior High School Students’English Writing Self-efficacy Questionnaire Investigation" were used respectively to measure the perception on the Length Approach and the students’level of English writing self-efficacy. Then their relationship was analyzed through Pearson Correlation Analysis. In addition, the factors influencing students’writing self-efficacy were analyzed and how powerful or influential these factors influence students’English writing self-efficacy was further explored. The interview was a supplement for the Length Approach questionnaire investigation, and it was conducted in the process of experiment to discover problems of students in time; and another main purpose of doing the interview is to explore how the Length Approach affects students’English writing self-efficacy. The major findings of the study are listed as follows:1) The English writing self-efficacy of senior high school students is not high, and as a whole, they lack confidence in their English writing.2) Through the sorting of factors influencing English writing self-efficacy, it can be found that except for "external writing attribution", other factors all have significant effects on writing self-efficacy. Among them, "prior writing success", "teacher’s feedback", and "peer comparison" have greater impacts on writing self-efficacy.3) The experimental results show that the Length Approach has enhanced students’ writing confidence, made them write longer and their English writing self-efficacy has been improved as well. There is a significant positive correlation between the Length Approach and senior high school students’ writing self-efficacy.4) In the process of the implementation of the Length Approach, through "peer exchange revision", "peer assessment", "teacher correcting", "teachers’ evaluation", "appreciating classmates’good compositions" and other positive, inspiring methods, the students have enhanced their writing self-efficacy. And also there has a link between all these specific ways of the Length Approach and the four information sources of self-efficacy. Furthermore, all these ways and sources interact with each other respectively and have a common purpose to enhance students’writing confidence and sense of success.Based on the results of questionnaires and some feedback from students, several suggestions from the perspective of instructors were proposed for the purpose of enhancing students’English writing confidence, improving their English writing self-efficacy, which may finally help students improve their writing abilities.