The Influence Of Different Genres Of Junior English Reading Texts On Alignment In The Continuation Task

The continuation task is a new type of writing.Its operation is to remove the end of a reading text and let students read the left part and write on the basis of understanding the content.Writing coupled with reading in a continuation task entails alignment,which is an effective way to significantly affects and faciliate learner's L2 production.In the continuation task,the learners use the language structure,vocabulary and phrase from the original text in high frequency,and the errors are obviously reduced.At present,there is no evidence that the different genres of English reading texts in junior high school have an alignment effect on the continuation task.This study attempts to find out that the differences of alignment effects in the continuation tasks between narration and exposition.This study focuses on the following two research issues to explore the differences in the alignment effects of narration and exposition.(1)What are the alignment differences of vocabularies and phrases between the narration and exposition continuation task?(2)What are the alignment differences of error types and frequencies between the narration and exposition continuation task? The sample of this study was 100 students in two parallel classes of Grade Nine from a middle school in Linyi,Shandong province.The students of the two classes were required to do six reading writing tasks,three writing tasks of narration and three writing tasks of exposition,and the experiment lasted for six weeks.The alignment writing output quantity,error types and frequency of subjects were analyzed,and data was analyzed through SPSS 18.The results showed that:(1)The narration of the continuation task produced more alignment number of words and phrases than those of the exposition.(2)The continuation task of narration had larger output number than the continuation task of exposition and the continuation task of narration was more conducive to the students' imagination.(3)There are fewer errors in the exposition of the continuation task than those in the narration of the continuation task.(4)There were significant differences of the error frequencies in temporal errors,Chinglish errors and misuse of articles verbs between the two genres.The other three kinds of error frequencies(number agreement errors,misuse of copula,misuse of non-finite verbs)had no significantdifference.Based on the results of the data,the following conclusions have been drawn in this study:(1)There are significant differences in the alignment effects between narrative and exposition continuation,mainly in vocabulary,phrase and errors.(2)The continuation of narration is more beneficial to the output of language and the development of students' imagination.(3)Exposition of the continuation task is more accurate in language than the narrative continuation.The implications of this study are as follows: The continuation task is an effective method of foreign language learning,not only for the students in universities and high schools,but also for junior high school students.It can be used not only as an evaluation means of writing teaching,but also as a way to improve English writing ability.Teachers should consider the advantages and disadvantages of the two genres and pay attention to teaching according to students' aptitude.The students' imagination and language production are trained through the continuation task of narration,while their logical thinking ability and the development of language accuracy are trained through the continuation task of exposition.What's more,teachers should avoid using only one genre of reading materials for the continuation task all the time.