Applying The “Read-to-write” Pedagogy In The Teaching Of Junior High School English Writing

Writing is a very integrative ability in language use.The new curriculum standard and the entrance exams for senior high schools are getting more demanding for English writing.With China’s rising international status,the need for better international communication and academic research is growing.However,there still exist many problems in the teaching of English writing in junior high schools.For students,many of them are mainly restrained by negative attitudes towards English writing,small vocabulary size,spelling mistakes and Chinglish,among many others.For teachers,they do not attach importance to English writing.In recent years,the emerging“Read-to-write” Pedagogy has combined reading with writing to improve junior high school students’ English writing competence,which is very suitable for the teaching of English writing.But an overview of relevant literature indicates that academic research on the teaching and learning of English writing in junior high schools,particularly in light of the “Read-to-write” Pedagogy is rather rare.Therefore,in order to validate the feasibility and validity of applying the“Read-to-write” Pedagogy in the teaching of junior high school English writing and find efficient ways to improve junior high school students’ English writing competence,this thesis conducted an empirical research by choosing Oxford English as the research object and with the theories of “Input Hypothesis”,“Output Hypothesis” and “the Cognitive Process Theory” as its theoretic foundations,and particularly focused on the following three research questions:(1)What is the status quo of the teaching and learning of English writing in contemporary Chinese junior high schools and particularly what are the major problems therein?(2)How can the teaching and learning of junior high school English writing can be effectively improved by employing the “Read-to-write” Pedagogy?(3)What are the effects of the“Read-to-write” Pedagogy in the teaching and learning of English writing in junior high schools,and in which aspects?This project first employed the investigation method by distributingquestionnaires among 114 students and 45 teachers from Ma’anshan City of Anhui province,particularly at Ma’anshan Experimental Middle School,where the current author is working,with an aim to examine the status quo of the teaching and learning of English writing in junior high schools,particularly focusing on the problems therein.Based on the results of the survey,60 students from two parallel classes in Grade Eight of Ma’anshan Experimental Middle School were chosen as the subjects for the subsequent experiment.During the one-term experiment,both classes used the same teaching materials,but the “Read-to-write” pedagogy was applied in the teaching and learning of English writing in the experimental class while the control class used the traditional approach,which lays more emphasizes on the linguistic analysis and interpretation of reading materials in class,and on the practice and assessment of writing tasks outside the class.The data were then collected and statistically analyzed by SPSS 20.0 after the experiment.The major findings of the research are as follows:(1)According to the results of the questionnaire survey,many junior high school students are restrained by a low level of motivation,inadequate knowledge of English vocabulary and grammar,and are apt to be influenced by the negative impacts of Chinglish in their learning of English writing.Moreover,they are overly dependent on teachers for writing assessment.For teachers,they generally do not pay due attention to English writing and tend to use improper methods in their teaching practice.(2)As for the relationship between reading and writing,it has now been generally acknowledged that they are closely related and mutually dependent.The results of the one-semester experiment suggest that the “Read-to-write” Pedagogy plays a positive role in improving the students’ English writing competence,especially in the mastery of English vocabulary and grammar,textual structure and coherence.(3)Based on the results of the experiment,a new approach to the “Read-to-write” Pedagogy the teachers was proposed,consisting of five steps:(1)Introduction,in which the topic is heuristically introduced;(2)Presentation,in which the reading material is presented naturally;(3)Analysis,in which the linguistic feature and textual structure of reading material is analyzed;(4)Writing,in which the students are asked to write on the basis of the reading materials;and(5)Evaluation,in which the students’ writing products areevaluated by themselves,by their peers and/or by their teachers.The thesis is concluded by giving some pedagogical suggestions and implications for the teaching of English writing in junior high schools by applying the“Read-to-Write” Pedagogy on the basis of the current empirical research.