An Empirical Study On The Process Writing Approach Assisted By Automatic Writing Evaluation System In Senior High Schools

The study aims to explore the impact of the process writing approach assisted by automatic writing evaluation system(AWES)on students’ English writing in senior high schools.English writing is an effective way to test the students’ comprehensive English ability.Therefore,English writing teaching is very important for the development of students’ English ability.However,in the current English teaching,writing teaching is the relatively weak link.On the one hand,teachers do not have sufficient time and energy to modify every student’s composition in detail,on the other hand,students are usually at a loss for the writing tasks assigned by the teacher because they don’t know how to improve and polish their writings.In this sense,it is necessary to improve the efficiency of English writing teaching and change the current situation.Nowadays,the process writing approach is more and more popular in senior high schools.It focuses on the students’ writing process,which emphasizes helping students find problems and improving their skills in the process.With the advancement of curriculum reform in senior high schools,modern educational technology is also being more and more widely used in English teaching.The AWES is popular because of its unique advantages.But the current studies of the AWES mainly focus on the reliability and validity of the AWES itself,while little is done on the empirical research with a combination of the AWES and the process writing approach.This study is designed to explore whether the process writing approach assisted by AWES contributes to the English writing in senior high schools.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)Is the process writing approach assisted by AWES able to improve the students’ English writing achievement?(2)How does the process writing approach assisted by AWES impact students’ English writing?(3)What are the students’ attitudes towards the process writing approach assisted by AWES in senior high schools?Based on the process approach theory,dynamic assessment theory and computer assistedlanguage learning theory,this study was carried out in a senior high school in Hebei province and one hundred sophomores of 2 classes were selected as the participants for this study.The two classes were randomly divided into the controlled class and the experimental class.The process writing approach assisted by AWES was applied in the experimental class while the controlled class only used the process writing approach.The research instruments of this research include the pre-test and post-test,the questionnaire,the interview and students’ writing texts.The pre-test and post-test are used to test the impact of the process writing approach assisted by the AWES on students’ English writing achievement.The questionnaire and interview are used in the experimental class to find out the students’ attitudes towards the process writing approach assisted by AWES in senior high schools.Meanwhile,the systematic analysis of students’ writing texts is to explore the specific effects of the process writing approach assisted by AWES on students’ English writing.The collected data were analyzed by the SPSS 19.0.for the independent sample test and paired sample test.The specific analysis results are as follows:1)Compared with the only process approach,the process writing approach assisted by the AWES is relatively more effective in improving the students’ writing achievement in senior high schools.2)The AWES provides students with positive,specific and timely feedback on grammar,lexical collocation and spelling,so that teachers can pay more attention to their writing structure and content.3)Most students take a positive attitude towards the process writing approach assisted by AWES.Specifically,low and mid-score group students think that the specific and timely AWES feedback is very helpful for them,while the high-score group students think that the help of the AWES feedback is very limited to them.It can be seen that the process writing approach assisted by the AWES has its unique advantages and a positive impact on the English writing teaching in senior high schools.The conclusions drawn by the research have confirmed the research hypothesis,so it has the theoretical and practical significance.In this sense,it is feasible to carry out the process writing approach assisted by the AWES in senior high schools.In addition,the researcher alsomakes reflections based on the conclusions and puts forward some suggestions for further research in order to promote the in-depth development of the related research and teaching activities.