Application Of Problem-based Learning(PBL) In English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

The overall goal of the English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School clearly puts forward that students’ abilities of autonomous learning and cooperative learning should be fostered,forming their effective English learning strategies and evolving their comprehensive language competence.English writing,as an crucial language skill,is an important symbol of the comprehensive language competence.For the basic requirements of English writing,the Standard points out that students should grasp some basic English writing genres and writing skills and they can write coherent and complete passages to express their views and attitudes correctly.However,the actual situation of English writing is not optimistic.Previous English teaching emphasizes too much on grammar and reading and ignores the significance of English writing.In addition,the product approach can’t motivate students’ interest in writing.Even in some areas,English writing teaching is nearly ignored,which makes students’ writing situations to become worse and worse.PBL approach,as a new teaching approach,aims to improve students’ autonomous and cooperative learning abilities and form their ability to settle practical problems.This study was carried out in Qin’an NO.5 Middle School in Tianshui city,Gansu province.The subjects were two intact classes from senior one.One class served as the Experimental Class(EC),the other class as the Control Class(CC),and the experiment lasted for eight weeks.This study applied the PBL approach into English writing teaching of senior high school,and carried out the empirical research.Before conducting the experiment,the author made a systematic review of the research status of the PBL approach and English writing teaching approach,and explained the concept and characteristics of PBL approach.Upon this,the author carried out experiment.During the experiment,the EC adopted the PBL approach while the CC maintained the product approach.Before and after the experiment,the author used tests and questionnaire to test students’ writing scores and attitudes in these two classes respectively.According to the data analysis of SPSS,it was concluded that applying the PBL approach in English writing teaching was effective and feasible.Finally,the study concluded that PBL approach applied in the senior high school’s English writing teaching can not only improve the students’ English writing scores but also boost students’ attitude toward English writing.Due to the limitation of time and the researchers’ research experience,it is still needed to be further researched.