An Empirical Study Of The Effect Of Literature-Reading On Non-English Major College Students' English Writing Proficiency

Writing,as an essential connecting link in the four basic skills of English learning,can well reflect the overall language proficiency of students.However,the current English writing proficiency of non-English majors in China is still at a low level.Therefore,how to help students improve their writing enthusiasm and then improve their writing ability is one of the key issues that many English educators and researchers should pay close attention to.Reading and writing work together in the whole process of foreign language learning: Reading provides models for successful writing and students' command of language and their logical thinking ability reflected in their compositions have a great relationship with reading.Therefore,the application and research of the writing teaching method combined with reading is of great significance.However,the relationship between reading and writing has not been paid due attention in the college English writing teaching.As the most typical successful language application,English literature is not fully utilized at all.Theories and researches suggest that,the writing teaching on the basis of the literature-reading not only conforms to the theoretical requirements,but also suits the learning situation of Chinese non-English majors,which has its own unique advantages.Based on the current situation of college English writing teaching,the present study is intended to explore the influence of English literature-reading on the English writing proficiency of non-English majors.The research mainly focuses on the following questions:(1)Does literature-reading have an effect on English writing proficiency of non-English major college students?(2)Are there any differences among the effect that literature-reading has on the five dimensions of English writing proficiency?(3)Are there any differences among the effect that literature-reading has on the students in different writing proficiency groups?A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis was employed in the research.The author carried out a 16-week teaching experiment in Shandong Normal University,choosing 86 freshmen from two parallel natural classes in those who major in Financial Management as participants.One of the two classes was randomly selected as the experimental group,adopting literature-reading method and carrying out related reading guidance,reading tasks,and writing exercises and other activities,while the other one was the control class,employing traditional teaching method.Writing test of CET-4 and interview are adopted as research instruments during the experimental process.Based on the quantitative analysis on the data obtained from the pre and post-test and the combination of qualitative analysis,the conclusions were gained.The experiment proved that English literature-reading method to some extent can promote students' English writing proficiency,especially on the content,organization and vocabulary of the composition.Meanwhile,English literature-reading method can be more effective in improving the English writing proficiency of low and middle proficiency students than high proficiency.According to the research results,the author puts forward some suggestions on college English writing teaching.In the end,the author puts forward some suggestions for further research based on the limitations of the present research.