A Study On The Application Of Memetic Theory To English Writing Teaching For Senior One Students In Senior High Schools

English writing is an important standard to measure students’ comprehensive ability in English,and is also a weak one of the four abilities(listening,speaking,reading and writing)for the students in high school.However,the teachers’ inappropriate teaching methods,students’ insufficient vocabulary and weak grammar make the improvement of the writing scores difficult.Therefore,it is extremely urgent to choose a new teaching model to improve students’ English writing scores.Memetics believes that the process of language communication is the process of continuous replication and dissemination of language memes,mainly reflected in the reproduction and dissemination of linguistic memes such as vocabulary,grammar,sentence structure and text layout,which offers a new perspective to the English writing teaching in senior high school.Therefore,the study applies memetics to English writing teaching,aiming at exploring the influence of English writing teaching model based on memetics on student writing,and based on this,putting forward effective strategies and opinions for the English writing teaching.The research subjects are the 101 students from class 1 and 2 of senior one in No.68 Middle School in Urumqi.Among them,class 1 is the experimental class,which uses memetics-based writing approach,while the class 2 is the controlled class in which the product approach is employed.The experiment period lasts for 10 weeks.The questionnaires,tests and interview are used as the research instruments,trying to solve the following three questions:(1)What is the current English writing situation of the senior one students in No.68 Middle School in Urumqi?(2)Can the English writing teaching method based on memetics improve students’ English writing scores?(3)Can the English writing teaching method based on memetics change the current English writing situation of the senior one students in No.68 Middle School in Urumqi?All the data in experiment is analyzed by SPSS17.0,and the research results indicate: Firstly,the current English writing situation of senior one students of No.68 middle school in Urumqi is not optimistic.On the one hand,students hold a negative attitude to English writing and consider English writing difficult and unimportant.On the other hand,students’ English writing proficiency is poor because of their deficient vocabulary,mess sentence patterns and illogical essay.Besides,students are lack of writing skills and strategies,have no ideas about recitation and imitation,andthey also have no awareness to make a layout before writing.Secondly,the English writing teaching method based on memetics can effectively improve students’ English writing scores.Finally,the English writing teaching method based on memetics can change the current English writing situation of the senior one students in No.68 Middle School in Urumqi.To some extent,it can change students’ negative writing attitude,improve students’ writing proficiency and promote students’ writing skills and strategies.Through the research,the following three implications are concluded:(1)Teachers should pay more attention to the choice of language memes so as to choose language memes that are suitable for students to recite and memorize;(2)teachers should devote to developing students’ awareness of recitation,and providing students with a variety of exercises;(3)teachers should concentrate on the role of interaction,and promptly point out the students’ mistakes.