The Application Of Recitation-imitation To Non-English Majors' English Writing Teaching At Vocational Colleges

English writing is more difficult to master as one of the four basic language skills in English—listening,speaking,reading and writing.Meanwhile,it is also one of the basic requirements for the non-English majors at vocational colleges,according to "Basic Requirements for English Teaching at Higher Vocational Colleges".How to improve the students' English writing is a hot topic and difficult issue of current research.Recitation,a traditional Chinese language learning method,has a solid theoretical basis,and imitation of model essays has also proved to be a good way of writing.However,there are few studies on English writing from the perspective of recitation and imitation,especially of non-English majors at vocational colleges.In this study,the researcher attempts to combine recitation with imitation in the teaching of English writing by applying the "recitation-imitation" method to the writing teaching of non-English majors at one vocational college,with the aim of exploring the effects of"recitation-imitation" method on students' English writing.There are two research questions to explore:(1)Does the "recitation-imitation" method work more effectively than traditional method in enhancing the writing ability of the vocational college students?(2)Does the"recitation-imitation" method improve the vocational college students' attitudes towards English writing?80 students of two classes in the department of pharmacy in one medical college were chosen as subjects.Two writing tests were carried out before and after the teaching experiment so as to investigate the effects of "recitation-imitation" method and all the collected data were analyzed statistically.In addition,two questionnaires and an interview were conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the students' attitudes and opinions on this writing teaching method.According to the results of analysis of the teaching experiment in one semester,it is testified that "recitation-imitation" method can improve the English writing ability of non-English majors at vocational colleges.The results of two questionnaires and one interview show that the students hold a positive attitude towards "recitation-imitation"method.Based on the major findings of the research,it is worthy of applying"recitation-imitation" method to English writing teaching at vocational colleges.