An Action Research On The Application Of Reading-to-writing Approach To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

Historically,reading and writing were taught separately as independent language skills.Reading was regarded as a receptive skill related to understanding others' message while writing was considered as a productive skill connected to delivering messages.However,in the 1980 s,scholars studied the interconnection between reading and writing,making the claim that reading has positive effects on improving writing ability and vice versa.Since then,teaching writing through reading has become broadly accepted.But few researches have been conducted on the application of reading-to-writing approach to English writing teaching in senior high school.Therefore,based on the Input Hypothesis,Output Hypothesis and Discourse Analysis,the action research was conducted to explore the effects of Reading-to-writing approach to English writing teaching in senior high school.This thesis attempts to answer the following research questions:Is the English writing teaching based on Reading-to-writing approach effective for the improvement of senior high school students' English writing abilities? If it is,in which aspects of the students' English writing abilities are improved?To answer the above questions,38 students in Class RW(Reading and Writing),Senior One from Guangzhou Yueixiu Foreign Language School were selected to participate in the twelve-week action research.Students' current English writing problems are identified via a pre-questionnaire and a pre-test.According to these problems existing in senior high school students' English writing,the author conducted three-round action researches and required students to finish all kinds of writing practices and read various reading materials.Different rounds of action lay emphasis on different aspects of writing ability improvement.The first round of action was designed to enhance students' language accuracy in English writing.The second round of action focused on improving students' diversity of sentence patterns in English writing.And the third round of action aimed to improve students' contextual coherence.The three-round action researches aim to change the situation that students are reluctant to write and do not know how to write.In these researches,the students are asked to read some reading materials,to collect various useful words,expressions,phrases,sentence patterns and contextual cohesive devices and to apply them into English writing.Results suggest that: 1)The English writing teaching based on Reading-to-writing approach is an effective way to improve senior high school students' English writing scores and enhance students' English writing abilities.2)The English writing teaching based on Reading-to-writing approach has positive effects on language accuracy,diversity of sentence patterns and contextual coherence of students' English writing.