A Case Study Of Avoidance In English Writing In Senior High School Based On Think-Aloud Protocols

Avoidance is one of the important factors in the process of English writing among those that affect high school students' writing competence.There is a phenomenon in students' writing that they have less chance of making mistakes in simple English,and the vocabulary and sentence they used in their writing are generally easy.Students avoid using those more accurate and more difficult expressions,which arouses my great interest.Therefore,by the means of think-aloud protocols,this thesis intends to explore the phenomenon among the six students in Qianjiang middle school,based on the following questions:(1)What do students usually avoid when they have difficulty in expressing their ideas in English writing?(2)What measures do they take to solve avoidance in the process of English writing?(3)What are the differences in responses to the avoidance in writing among students with different writing competence?Based on transcribing text,it is found that avoidance phenomenon occurs in the topics,words and syntax,among which the word avoidance stands the top according to the frequency of avoidance.It's known that students tend to use synonyms,approximate expressions and literal translation when they fail to use accurate words.Syntactic avoidance goes second.It is evident that simple sentence,active voice and repeating sentence structure are often used instead of coordinate sentence,compound sentence and passive voice.It is not obvious for subjects to avoid a topic,beacause they tend to give up a topic when they have no idea of a word or a sentence expression.The measures they take to avoidance includes: circumlocution,native language transfer,repetition and abandonment.Circumlocution are frequently used the most,then follows abandonment,and native languge transfer and repetition are used relatively less.There are differences in taking measures to the aviodance among the subjects with different writing competence.Subjects with high writing proficiency inclined to use circumlocution and abandonment,and subjects with medium writing proficiency use circumlocution,repetition and abandonment,while subjects with low writing proficiency use these four ways to deal with avoidance.Besides,it is shown that subjects with differentwriting competence adopts different attitudes towards avoidance phenomenon.Subjects with high writing proficiency are more active and confident,while subjects with medium writing proficiency and low writing proficiency are more likely to choose moderate way,and they are anxious and negative when they meet with avoidance phenomenon.From the above findings,suggestions are proposed to solve the avoidance phenomenon in English writing.This thesis in some degree aims to reveal the psychological cognitive process in writing by the means of think-aloud protocols,which provides a new way to explore the avoidance in students' writing.Teachers are inspired and encouraged to guide students to deal effectively with the phenomenon of avoidance in students' writing.