An Investigation Of Compensation Strategies Use In English Writing Of Senior Middle School Students

Recently,our country has adopted a series of policies to reform the current college entrance examination system and,undoubtedly,English subject becomes one of the hot issues.From these policies of reform,English is still one of the three compulsory subjects of the national college entrance examination and the full marks are 150 points.In English test of college entrance examination,writing,which tests the student's comprehensive capability of English application,occupies a great proportion of full marks.However,at present,English writing teaching needs to improve in traditional school instruction.Some English teachers pay little attention to writing and students are afraid of English writing and lack initiative in composition.In these years,many researchers have made lots of studies from different aspects on how to improve students' writing abilities in class,but there are rare studies on how to employ compensation strategy to improve their writing abilities in senior middle school.It is well known that compensation strategy is a kind of communication strategies and it has the function to enable learners to use the target language for either fluency or integrity of information communication despite limitations in language.Compensation strategy is intended to make up for an inadequate repertoire of grammar and vocabulary.The application of compensation strategy is an inevitable phenomenon in language and most people take compensation strategy as an efficient skill to eliminate communication obstacles.There are three questions in the paper.(1)What is students' awareness of compensation strategies in English writing?(2)What is the situation of compensation strategy use in English writing of senior middle school students?(3)What are the differences of compensation strategy use in English writing among high-achievers,average learners and under-achievers?In this research,the author selects 296 learners studying in the second grade from two senior middle schools,Zhengzhou No.6 Middle School and Zhengzhou No.44 Middle School in Henan Province.These students come from six classes,three classes in each middle school.And the researcher divides the learners into three portions according to their English scores offinal exam in last semester: high-achievers,average learners and under-achievers.In the first stage,the 296 students are asked to complete the first questionnaire,including 23 questions.The questionnaire aims at investigating senior middle school students' awareness of compensation strategies,the situation of compensation strategy use in English writing of senior middle school students and the individual differences among high-achievers,average learners and under-achievers.In the second stage,the author selects 10 students in each middle school randomly to make interview with them.The investigation shows that most senior middle school students have a little knowledge about compensation strategies and only about thirty percent of the students usually adopt compensation strategies in English writing.Besides,L1-based strategy is found to be the most frequently utilized strategy by senior middle school students in English writing while L2-based strategy is the least frequently utilized by students.Finally,there are obvious differences in compensation strategies use among high-achievers,average learners and under-achievers in English writing.In future education,English teachers should pay more attention to the following aspects to improve students' writing abilities: 1.Students should overcome the negative transfer of mother tongue.2.English teachers should lead students to employ avoidance strategies less frequently.3.English teachers should pay more attention to individual differences in class.4.English teachers display the use of compensation strategies in various contexts.5.English teachers instruct students compensation strategies step by step.6.Strategy training is necessary in class.