An Experimental Study Of The Process Writing Approach To English Writing Teaching In Vocational College

Writing is regarded as a necessary but challenging skill for many English learners.In recent years,the teaching and learning of English writing has gained a lot of attention from scholars and teachers alike.Several problems have been identified from many researches,and the teaching approach has become one of the most hindrances as the traditional approach,the product-oriented approach,is still widely adopted in many colleges.With the development of cognitive science,especially the cognitive model of process writing proposed by Flower and Hayes,more and more attention has been paid to the application of the process writing approach in teaching English writing.Many studies have been done in various educational settings,but students in vocational colleges are rarely touched.In recent years,one important innovation in the study of writing which has drawn more and more attention is the application of Automated Writing Scoring(AWS).Theoretically,it can provide timely and.comprehensive feedback,which is more efficient and effective than teacher 's feedback and peer feedback.But few studies have integrated AWS into the process writing teaching.In previous studies,the focus of the application of the process approach is mainly about the students' writing competence and there are few comprehensive studies.Thus,it is necessary to carry out a much more comprehensive study to explore these aspects.Following questions are specially addressed in this paper.1.Compared with the Product approach,is the process writing approach a better approach to improve the English writing competence of students in a vocational college?2.Does the process writing approach have any effect on learners' writing anxiety?3.Does the process writing approach have any effect on learners' writing efficacy?Ninety-four freshmen from two classes in a vocational college in Xi'an,Shaanxi province were chosen as subjects to conduct an experimental study from September,2016 to July,2017,with the one for the product-oriented approach as the control class,the other for process writing approach as the experimental class.In order to have clear answers to those research questions,two questionnaires,the writing anxiety scale and the writing efficacy scale,and two writing tests have been employed as the instruments in this study.The responses to the questionnaires and the scores of the writing tests are collected and analyzed by adopting SPSS 19.0.What's more,an interview was also done to get more insights.The major findings of this study are as follows:1.Compared with the Product approach,the process writing approach is a better approach to improve the English writing competence of students in a vocational college.2.The process writing approach has positive effect on reducing learners' writing anxiety.3.The process writing approach has positive effect on enhancing learners'writing efficacy.Based on the findings of this study,some pedagogical suggestions were put forward for teaching writing in vocational colleges and the implications for future research are also discussed and proposed.