A Corpus-based Empirical Study On The Teaching Of IELTS Writing Task 1

Although the research on IELTS writing in China has achieved fruitful achievements,very limited number of research on task 1 has been found in CNKI.Taking task 1 as the research subject and combining Input Theory with corpus,this study designs corpus-based teaching approach and applies it to the teaching of IELTS writing task 1,so as to investigate whether the new approach is more effective than the traditional teaching approach in improving students' performance and attempts to explore the new teaching path on the basis of corpus.The research procedures are as follows: first of all,the author constructs a corpus about IELTS writing task 1;secondly,the author implements a 16-week empirical study with the questionnaire,taking students of grade 2016,2017 in Hebei Agricultural University as the research subjects.Students of grade 2016 are regarded as the control group,traditional teaching approach applied,while students of grade 2017 are regarded as the experimental group,corpus-based teaching approach applied.In experimental group,the teacher expounds vocabularies,collocations,sentence patterns following the principles of Input Theory;students realize “i + 1” and form a systematic learning materials under the guidance of the teacher.At last,with the help of Independent-sample T test,the author makes the contrastive analysis of the questionnaire results of the two groups.The results reveal that: firstly,compared with the control group,the students in the experimental group have significantly improved their abilities in terms of the satisfaction with the requirements,coherence,lexical and grammar and they are observably more satisfied with their compositions than those in the control group.Secondly,the approach is able to provide the students with substantial materials and effectively promote the improvement of students' level.Finally,the Input Theory makes students consciously establish the connection between their current level and higher level which is beneficial to enhance the efficiency of learning.This paper provides a new method for the author and other researchers---corpusbased teaching approach and also presents some implications for IELTS writing: Firstly,corpus resources should be utilized fully to cultivate students' awareness of corpus.Secondly,teachers and students should consciously follow the principle of “i +1” when extracting input materials.Thirdly,students are required to receive a large amount of comprehensible input.