The Research On The Application Of Memetics-based Teaching Model To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

As a productive skill,English writing integrates various knowledge,thinking,emotions and experiences,which can fully reflect an individual’s comprehensive language ability.Through the literature review,this study concludes that English writing competence consists of four elements: lexis,grammar,content and organization.Currently,there are some problems in English writing for students in senior high school,mainly manifested in insufficient vocabulary,weak grammar knowledge,limited writing thinking,insufficient knowledge in writing structure and high levels of writing anxiety.Memetics,proposed by Dawkins,is used to explain cultural development.Its core is “meme”,which refers to the information that can be replicated and transmitted through imitation,so human language is also a kind of meme.Notably,imitation is not a mechanically repetitive behavior,but rather a cognitive activity based on choice and understanding.With the development of language Memetics,scholars have applied the life cycle of a meme,namely assimilation,retention,expression and transmission,to language teaching,especially English writing teaching.Based on the summary of existing research results,this study constructed a Memetics-based English writing teaching model suitable for students in senior high school in order to provide a practical and effective approach for the English writing classroom to solve the problems of writing teaching and writing learning faced by teachers and students.In order to achieve the research purposes,the author selected two parallel classes in Grade 11 of a middle school in Kashi City as the experimental subjects to carry out the teaching experiment over 3 months to explore the influence of this writing teaching model on students’ English writing anxiety and writing competence in senior high school.The experimental class has 50 students who received the writing teaching model based on Memetics and the control class has 53 students who received the product approach.This study used the experiment,the questionnaires,the tests and the interview to answer the following research questions:（1）What effects does Memetics-based writing teaching model have on students’ English writing anxiety in senior high school?（2）What effects does Memetics-based writing teaching model have on students’ English writing grades in senior high school?（3）For the four dimensions of English writing competence（lexis,grammar,content and organization）,which aspect can be enhanced most effectively by implementing Memetics-based writing teaching model in senior high school?The results have shown that,Memetics-based writing teaching model can relieve students’ English writing anxiety effectively in senior high school;compared with the product approach,Memetics-based writing teaching model can improve students’ English writing grades more obviously in senior high school;for the four aspects of English writing competence,Memetics-based writing teaching model can have a most significant effect on enhancing students’ level of writing organization in senior high school,followed by the levels of content,grammar and lexis in this order.This study can provide a new case for the research on the application of Memetics-based writing teaching model,and verify that this model can fully combine input and output.With the employment of this teaching model in English writing lessons of senior high school,the input of writing memes can be more comprehensive and systematic,and the output of writing memes can also follow the process concept.