An Application Of Flipped Classroom To Junior Middle School English Writing Instruction

English writing is always an indispensable skill for Chinese students who learn English as a second language.With the quick development of globalization,young Chinese are supposed to meet an even higher standard of English writing.Therefore,it is of paramount importance to continue improving the writing skills of Chinese students with the enhanced English teaching practice.There are still some issues concerning the current English writing instruction in junior middle schools.Some English teachers tend to spend much time in their classes explaining grammatical rules,providing writing samples and template sentences.As a result,students receive passively and often complain about writing classes as boring and difficult.Without true mastery of the writing skills,some students even copy sample essays found in reference books or use computer software to translate their essays from Chinese into English in order to finish their assignments.By providing an upside-down model of teaching,flipped classroom could turn the teacher-centered class to students-centered class with the involvement of every student.It also helps to meet individual needs of different students and promises to give detailed corrections and timely feedback.The implementation of flipped classroom could contribute to resolving the existing issues through the enhancement of English writing instruction.In this study,the author would like to find out the effects of flipped classroom on junior students in English writing instruction.The specific research questions of this dissertation are as follows:(1)what effects does flipped classroom have on junior students'English writing scores;(2)what effects does flipped classroom have on junior students' learning motivation;(3)what effects does flipped classroom have on junior students' self-efficacy.The author conducted the experiments in a junior middle school in Shenzhen and randomly chose Class 5 of Grade 8 as the experimental class,and Class 6 of Grade 8 as the control class.From February 2018 to June 2018,the students in experimental class were taught English writing in the mode of flipped classroom,while the students in control class were taught in the traditional non-flipped classroom.After the intervention of flipped classroom,the author interviewed 15 students from the experimental class at high-,medium-and low-levels respectively.Research instruments in this study consist of test,scale and interview.After data collection,the author used independent samples t test and paired samples t test to examine significant differences with SPSS 21.0.NVivo 10 was adopted to find out supportive reasons behind these numerical results and explore students' perspectives on the implementation of flipped classroom.After the one-semester teaching experiment,this study achieved the following findings:(1)flipped classroom has positive effects on improving junior students' English writing scores,and students at the medium learning level make the most significant progress;(2)flipped classroom has positive effects on improving junior students' intrinsic learning motivation,and students at the medium learning level make the most significant progress.Flipped classroom does not have significant effects on junior students'extrinsic learning motivation;(3)flipped classroom has positive effects on improving junior students'self-efficacy,and students at the medium learning level make the most significant progress.To summarize,flipped classroom has positive effects on improving junior students'English writing scores,intrinsic learning motivation and self-efficacy.The effects of flipped classroom on different students are different,medium-level students make the most significant progress.Thus,teachers are suggested to apply flipped classroom in English writing instruction on the basis of the consideration of individual differences among students.