An Experimental Study Of Process Approach To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

As one of the four important skills of language learning(listening,speaking,reading and writing),writing plays a vital role in communication,which is being paid more and more attention to.Writing can help students master language effectively and reflect students' integrated language level.In addition,writing is a complex mental work.In recent years,more and more teachers have realized the important role of writing in English language teaching.The trend seems to have been reinforced by the new writing objectives in the newly promulgated Senior High School English Curriculum Criteria and new marking criteria of National Matriculation English Test(NMET).But the traditional writing teaching method seems have trouble in achieving these demands.It even has difficulties in improving students' writing achievements and writing attitude.Therefore,finding an effective way to change this situation is very important for the English teachers.This study intends to conduct an experiment on process approach writing teaching and tries to find out whether it is an effective way to lead a better result of writing teaching.118 students participate in the study and they come from two classes.There are 58 students in the experimental class and 60 students in the control class.The experimental class is taught English writing with the help of the process approach while the control class is taught under the product approach.The instruments are mainly questionnaires,interviews and tests.In this study,two questions are to be answered 1)Is the process approach more effective than the product approach in improving the participants' writing achievements? 2)How can the process approach be effective in improving the participants' writing attitude?The major findings are as follows: 1)In this study,both of the classes make a great progress in writing achievements,but the experimental class gets a higher improvement.Therefore,the process approach is more effective than the product approach in improving senior high school students' writing achievements.2)After the experiment of the process-approach,participants' writing interest has been improved gradually and their confidence has been strengthened greatly;they also approve of this idea “writing is a process” and most participants welcome brainstorming greatly;they hold positive attitude towards teacher's feedback and they trust teacher's evaluation,but most students do not approve of peers' evaluation.In a word,the process approach does take effect in improving participants' attitudes towards English writing.Some suggestions have been made for the future English writing teaching: In English writing teaching,teachers should attach importance to brainstorming,which is important and necessary.Then,teachers should make more feedback than peers' because teacher's feedback is more helpful than peers' evaluation.Thirdly,teachers should take advantage of the merits of two approaches and avoid the weakness of the process approach with the intention of achieving better teaching effect.At last,teachers should give effective guidance and training in the process of writing.