A Study Of Effects Of Continuation-task On Writing Performance Of Non-english Majors

Present researches claim that continuation-task can improve learners' English writing(Wang Chuming,2010).And some studies reason that the positive effects can be attributed to English learners' alignment with the given text of the continuation-task.However,a large portion of those studies discuss its effectiveness on English writing from a theoretical perspective instead of empirical perspective.And the small number of empirical studies mainly takes English majors or learners with a high-level language proficiency as participants.Thus,the study carried out an experiment to explore whether continuation-task had positive impacts on non-English majors' writing.And three research questions are put forward:(1)What's the current situation of English writing of non-English majors?(2)Does continuation-task have effects on English writing ability of non-English majors? If so,what are the effects?(3)Does continuation-task give an impact on English writing confidence of non-English majors? If so,what is the impact? To answer the three questions,the study carried out an experiment on 73 non-English majors of two classes at a college.Results show that:(1)English writing ability of those non-English majors is at an intermediate level.It is found that non-English majors still have some problems in lexicon and grammar,especially in grammar;(2)Continuation-task can improve non-English majors' writing ability.After the continuation-task training,non-English majors of experimental group have made some progress in content,organization,vocabulary and language use.But progress in mechanics is not so rapid.On the whole,compared with the pretest,text errors in their posttest writing are significantly reduced,especially the grammar errors.Lexical errors and tense errors are also decreased but the difference between those in the two tests are not statistically significant;(3)Continuation-task can enhance non-English majors' English writing confidence to some extent.Those results reveal that continuation-task can improve participants' English writing ability,especially in content,organization and language use and can reduce text errors,especially grammar errors in their compositions.It can also enhance non-English majors' English writing confidence to some extent.Those findings shed some insights into the continuation-task and provide empirical evidence for the effectiveness of continuation-task onnon-English majors' English writing.Meantime,the study offers some insights to English writing teaching that teachers should make full use of this method to improve non-English majors' English writing ability and enhance their confidence in English writing.Meantime,the research also gives some suggestions for further studies.