A Study On The Teaching Of Practical English Writing For Senior High School Students From The Perspective Of Memetics

English writing is a fundamental and crucial skill to learn English well.On the grounds of the Curriculum Standard Syllabus for 2017,the improvement of English writing proficiency is considered as one of the most basic and momentous mission.Besides,the composition occupies a large portion of the college entrance examination and reveals students’ comprehensive capability.In other words,students have to try their best to enhance their writing ability so as to do better on their scores of practical compositions.Therefore,it is of great necessity for teachers and the school to train high school students in practical English writing.Memetics is a newly developed theory aiming to interpret the evolutionary mechanisms of culture and information transmission from the perspective of the Darwinism.The main content of memetics focuses upon “something to be imitated”which first came up by Dawkins in 1976.Its main feature is imitation and replication,by which minds and ideas can be inherited.As to foreign language,it belongs to the category of culture and also needs to develop itself in the process of transmitting.Furthermore,imitation is frequently used in traditional English practical writing teaching but not so effective.On account of this,the thesis will combine English writing teaching with memetics in a systematic way in order to explore whether the integration can help high school students improve their writing grades.The study was carried out in a senior high school in Nanchang,Jiangxi Province.There are 106 students in this experiment,sustaining three months,among which 54 students are participants in the experimental class and the others in the control class.The research is designed to solve these two issues:(1)Can English practical writing based on memetics improve senior high school students’ writing performance? If so,to what extent?(2)Have students’ attitudes towards English writing changed before and after the English practical writing experiment based on memetics? What are the specific aspects? The writing tests are used to assess students’ writing proficiency and to compare the difference between the control class and the experimental class.And the implementation of questionnaires and interview for understanding the change of students’ attitudes towards English practical writing from the subjective perspectives.SPSS 22.0 will be applied to discuss and analyze the results of tests and questionnaires.In line with the results of the study,some conclusions are reached as it follows:(1)By the results of pre-test and post-test,English practical writing teaching on the basis of memetics can obviously improve senior high school students’ writing proficiency.Before the experiment,the mean scores of the two class are similar and the sig.(2-tailed)value shows there is no obvious difference in the two classes.Whereas,after the three-month experiment,the average scores of the experimental class has increased a lot while the control class not.And the p value of the comparison of writing grades of the two class uncovers significant difference in the two classes after the experiment.English practical writing teaching along with memetics plays an essential and positive part in students’ writing performance.(2)The results of interview,pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire unfold the students’ attitudes towards English practical writing has a more active tendency.The results of the statistics offer the proof that students obtain more positive writing motivation,become more confident as well as not so anxious in practical writing anymore.According to the answers of nine students in the interview,most of participants prefer the new teaching mode with memetics because it can help them actively recite more genotype memes and phenotype memes on the grounds of different topics,and in their opinions,English practical writing becomes not so hard by analyzing the structure of the composition.On the basis of major findings,there are some pedagogical enlightenment in this study.Firstly,the teacher should choose more relative genotype memes and phenotype memes according to students’ present learning level and different writing themes.Secondly,the teacher ought to brainstorm more different types of activities and games which can help students remember words and sentences more easily.The feedback from students is also applied to help students recite more actively.Finally,students’ self-awareness and attitudes towards English writing take a vital part in practical writing.In addition,some recommendations are also given.