A Study On The Application Of Combining Speaking And Writing To College English Writing Teaching From The Perspective Of Memetics

As one of the international languages,English is becoming increasingly important in communication.English writing is not only one of the important language skills,but the representative of one's comprehensive language ability.English writing requires students to master basic knowledge such as vocabulary,grammar and so on.What's more,students need to be able to correctly and flexibly use a variety of words,sentence patterns.So how to improve students' English writing ability is an issue which is worth to make a careful study.Previous researches on English writing cover five aspects: writing teaching,feedback,text analysis,writing assessment and influencing factors in writing.In these studies,few studies are from the perspective of memetics.The studies of memetics in English writing mainly focus on its feasibility in writing teaching,or combining listening,or reading with writing.There are few empirical studies on combining speaking and writing from the perspective of memetics.The author applies the combination of speaking and writing based on memetics in college English writing teaching,and tries to answer the following research questions:1.What are the characteristics of the misuse of words,the use of sentence patterns and cohesion in student's writing before and after the experiment?2.What effects does the teaching method of combining speaking and writing based on memetics exert on students' writing ability?3.What are students' attitudes toward the teaching method and English writing? The author conducts an experiment for one semester.The subjects of this study are sophomores of two classes in a college in Changchun,Jilin Province.Class A is the experimental group,with 42 students.Class B is the control group,with 46 students.In the teaching process in the experimental class,the author provides students with additional language memes input,including word memes,phrase memes,sentence pattern memes.According to the stages of meme transmission and language learning process,the author carries out a variety of speaking activities in writing class,such as group discussion,word games,debate,retelling,presentation and so on.During various speaking activities,students can understand,memorize and imitate the memes.More importantly,through speaking activities students can learn many language memes and then apply them in their writing.Students can gradually establish their own meme storage under the guidance of the teacher.In the teaching process in the control group,students write compositions on a given topic with little guidance from the author.The author returns the compositions to students,and summarizes the common language errors in students' writing.Students in EG and CG are asked to write compositions on the same topic.Students in EG also need to do questionnaires before and after the experiment.The author collects students' compositions in EG and CG and analyzes them from three aspects: misuse of words,the use of sentence patterns and cohesion.At the same time,questionnaires in EG are also analyzed.Major findings of the study are as follows:1.Before the experiment,students in the CG and the EG are at a similar level in these three aspects.The number of the misuse of word class and collocation errors is larger than that of the misuse of synonyms.Possible reason for this is the incorrect input and the lack of practice.As for the use of sentence patterns,the number of simple sentences is larger than that of compound and complex sentences.Although students are aware of using complex sentences,they are more inclined to use object clauses with limited sentence patterns like “I think/believe/acknowledge that...” Adverbial clauses are the second frequently used and mainly concentrate on adverbial clauses of time and cause.Attributive,subject,and appositive clauses are rarely used in students' compositions.Sentence complexity and variety are not enough.About the use of cohesion,the number of “listing” conjunctions is the largest with some fixed words like “firstly,secondly,thirdly”.And then is the use of “adversative” conjunctions.The use of “but,however” is the most common.Other types of conjunctions are seldom used in students' compositions.2.After the experiment,in the EG,the total number of the misuse of words decreases.Students in EG are able to use some word and phrase memes in their compositions.About the use of sentence patterns,the number of simple sentences decreases.The number of complex sentences increases but not very obvious.Through analyzing types of subordinate clauses in complex sentences,the author finds the number of object clauses decreases a lot while other kinds of subordinate clauses increases in EG.Language memes like “from my point of view,as far as I am concerned,for my part,as for me” are used to replace the fusty expression “I think”,“I believe”.The number of adverbial clauses increases.Except for the use of adverbial clauses of time and cause,adverbial clauses of concession and condition are used by students.Sentence pattern memes like “no matter who/when/where...,as long as...,even though/if...,etc.” are used by students.The number of subject clauses also increases,especially the use of patterns like “it is + adj.+ that...,it is + adj.+ to do”.The total number of conjunctions increases after the experiment in EG.And conjunctions are no longer limited to certain words like “but,however,firstly,secondly”.Language memes like “first of all,for one thing,for another,to start with,moreover,on the other hand,etc.” are used in students' compositions.Students in the EG improve their writing ability in terms of using words,sentence patterns and cohesion.The combination of writing and teaching based on memetics has positive effects on students' writing ability.While in the CG,there haven't been obvious changes or improvement in students' writing.3.Students' attitudes toward English writing changes from “unlike” to “like” after the experiment in EG.It is believed that the combination of speaking and writing based on memetics can enhance their confidence in writing and help improve their writing ability.This teaching method has positive effects on students' attitudes toward English writing.Results show that the combination of speaking and writing based on memetics is an effective teaching method,which has a positive effect on the improvement of students' English writing ability.It also helps enhance students' confidence in writing.