An Experimental Study On The Effects Of Collaborative Continuation Task And Individual Continuation Task On Senior High School Students' English Writing

In the English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High School(2017 Edition),it was mentioned that writing is one of the five basic skills,which plays an important role in English learning,because it can reflect students' comprehensive ability of language use.However,most of students are averse to English writing,and show English writing anxiety to some extent.As a non-intellectual factor,English writing anxiety has an impact on students' English writing performance to a great extent.In order to improve the situation and solve the problem,some researchers and teachers who are at home or abroad devoted themselves to trying to find out an effective way all the time.The proposal of Continuation Task offers a new way for improving the situation and solving the problem.However,according to the results of literature review,the researches on the application of Collaborative Continuation Task and Individual Continuation Task on English writing in senior high school are insufficient.Therefore,the author conducted the research in senior high school.The purpose of this research is to explore two questions:1)Compared with Individual Continuation Task,to what extent can Collaborative Continuation Task reduce students' English writing anxiety? 2)Compared with Individual Continuation Task,to what extent can Collaborative Continuation Task improve students' English writing achievements? The quantitative method is mainly applied in this research;tests and questionnaires are used as research instruments.Students in two paralleled classes in Xinzhou Senior High School(located in Gansu province)were chosen as the research participants.They were in Grade two,Class 12 and Class 13.In the experimental class,students were taught with the Collaborative Continuation Task teaching model,and in control class,students were taught with the Individual Continuation Task teaching model.The writing part of the first monthly English examination was used as the pretest,and the writing part of the third monthly English examination was used as the post-test.Besides,the author conducted a pretest on students' English writing anxiety by the questionnaire at the first week,trying to find out the current situation of students on English writing anxiety,and a post-test on English writing anxiety through the same questionnaire at the last week.The experiment lasted ten weeks.After conducting the experiment,data were collected and then analyzed by SPSS 23.From analyzing the results,findings are as followed:1)Compared with Individual Continuation Task,the Collaborative Continuation Task reduce students' English writing anxiety more efficiently,especially in the dimensions of somatic anxiety and avoidance behaviour.2)Compared with Individual Continuation Task,the Collaborative Continuation Task improve students' English writing achievements more efficiently,particularly in the perspectives of content,language and organization,whereas there is no obvious improvement in vocabulary and mechanics.There are three pedagogical implications for the English teachers.Firstly,English teachers could attempt to use Collaborative Continuation Task teaching model when teaching English writing.Secondly,the input materials should be interesting,extended,and moderately difficult when Collaborative Continuation Task is used for teaching English writing.Thirdly,English teachers should play the roles well in Collaborative Continuation Task teaching model,such as,guide,participant,observer,estimator,etc.Although the research provided some useful reference for English teachers on the teaching of English writing in senior high school,there are still a few limitations,such as the size of samples,the teacher's teaching experience,so the author offered some suggestions about how to improve the design of the experiment for the researchers who may conduct the relative studies in the future.