A Study On The Use Of Memetics To Imitation Writing In Junior Middle School English Writing Teaching And Learning

English writing in junior middle school is the key point and the difficult point in English learning and teaching.To improve students' writing ability,more and more teaching methods have been adopted in the writing class.Imitation writing based on Memetics is one of the methods to help students improve their writing ability and achievement.Memetics has four stages of assimilation,retention,expression and transmission and imitation writing has four steps of input,memorization,output and interaction.They have a close relationship with each other.Although imitation writing based on Memetics has been practiced in high school students,college students and even graduate students,it still hasn't been studied enough in junior middle school students.Therefore,this paper aims to study the use of imitation writing based on Memetics on junior English writing.Three research questions are:(1)How can the use of imitation writing affect students' writing performance?(2)Which aspects of writing have been improved more and what are some weaknesses?(3)What are perceptions of students of different levels to the imitation writing based on Memetics?The study lasted for four months.60 students from two classes in Grade Seven participated in the experiment.Class One is the control class(CC),which was taught by Product Approach.Class Two is the experimental class(EC)in which imitation writing based on Memetics was used.In the experiment,four writing tests and an interview were used and all the collected data were analyzed by SPSS 16.0.The results of tests and interview showed that:(1)Students writing achievementscan be improved by imitation writing based on Memetics.(2)The students made significant progress in language use and mechanic.There was some improvement in content.But in organization and vocabulary,the progress was not obvious.(3)Top level students made more progress in content,language use and mechanics.Middle level students achieved the most significant improvement in all aspects(except vocabulary),especially in organization and language use.Low level students made progress in content and mechanics.(4)The language use and mechanics of writing were improved in all levels of students.Here are some suggestions for further research on imitation writing teaching and learning:(1)To provide students with comprehensible and authentic input.(2)To follow the steps and periods of teaching imitation writing based on the Memetics to help students to imitate effectively.(3)To teach mechanics(basic knowledge)and language use carefully.(4)To design different teaching activities for students in different levels.