The Effects Of Comparative Continuation On Non-English Major Learners' Writing Alignment

Writing plays an indispensable role in English learning.For decades,researchers have been trying to find effective and applicable methods to enhance students' English writing ability.As a method of promoting writing teaching,continuation task has been widely verified in the field of foreign language writing teaching.This study focuses on comparative continuation,a variant of continuation task,and its effects on non-English major learners' writing alignment.Based on Input and Output Hypothesis and the Extension Hypothesis,the paper makes a study with quantitative analysis method to explore the following questions:(1)What is the effect of comparative continuation on non-English major learners' writing vocabulary alignment?(2)What is the effect of comparative continuation on non-English major learners' writing syntactic structure alignment?(3)What is the effect of comparative continuation on non-English major learners' writing accuracy? 91 sophomores majoring in chemistry from two parallel classes of Northwest Normal University are invited in the experiment,including47 in the experimental group and 44 in the control group.The former receives comparative continuation while the latter receives traditional propositional writing.The written production is measured in terms of vocabulary alignment,syntactic structure alignment and accuracy through Antconc 3.4.4 and the ratio of error-free clauses,and all data are analyzed by SPSS32.0.Major findings emerging from the results of the paper are:(1)Comparative continuation has considerable effect on non-English major learners' writing vocabulary alignment.Non-English major learners who receives comparative continuation are more likely aligned with the vocabulary of reading materials,especially in nouns and adjectives.(2)It shows that participants in the experimental group who receives comparative continuation tend to use four-word phrases that have appeared in reading materials,which indicates that non-English major learners who receives comparative continuation are more likely aligned with reading materials in syntactic structure.(3)With regard to accuracy,participants who receives comparative continuation have higher accuracy than that of the control group,which indicates that comparative continuation has positive effect on non-English major learners' writing accuracy.On the basis of above findings,some pedagogical implications on English writing teaching are drawn.Comparative continuation combines reading and writing,which can inspire students to think actively and increase students' attention to language expression and text development in reading materials,promote students to imitate and use the vocabulary and syntactic structure,and improve their ability of argumentation.Teachers should choose appropriate reading materials according to the actual situation of students,help students find the arguments that can be used for comparative continuation,so as to achieve the purpose of promoting writing by reading.