A Study On Differences Of The Influence Of Different Genres Of Continuation Task On The English Writing Of Senior High School Students

Writing is one of the fundamental skills that English learners are supposed to master and it is also considered as the most significant and the most difficult part in English learning.As a productive skill,writing involves vocabulary,grammar,content and logic,which is a concentrated reflection of learners’ comprehensive language application ability.Based on the second language acquisition theory,Prof.Wang,a Chinese scholar,first proposed the teaching mode of continuation task in 2012.This teaching mode closely combines reading and writing,promotes writing by reading,and aims to improve students’ English writing ability.However,most of the current researches focus on the influence of narrative writing task on students’ writing level,and the influence of other genres of writing is seldom referred to.Thus,this study works on differences of the influence of continuation task on the senior high school students’ English writing from the perspective of different genres,mainly concentrating on the differences of narration and argumentation.The three dimensions complexity,fluency and accuracy are commonly used to evaluate students’ writing.Therefore,this research tries to explore the following questions:（1）What are the differences in the influence of continuation task of narration and argumentation on the complexity of senior high school students’ writing?（2）What are the differences in the influence of continuation task of narration and argumentation on the fluency of senior high school students’ writing?（3）What are the differences in the influence of continuation task of narration and argumentation on the accuracy of senior high school students’ writing?This thesis selected two classes of ninety senior one high school students as the research subjects during three months.After the experiments,students finished three times of continuation writing task of narration and argumentation.Before and after the completion of all of the continuation tasks,questionnaires were issued to these students.The research results and data of complexity,fluency and accuracy were attained by the comparative analysis of subjects’ writing samples.After completing the continuation task,six students were randomly chosen for one-to-one interview.Through data analysis,the research found out that（1）The number of clauses and dependent clauses in the argumentative continuation task is higher than in narrative continuation task.（2）The language output of narrative continuation task is larger than argumentative continuation task.（3）The error frequency of argumentative continuation task is lower than narrative continuation task.Based on the research results,this study concluded that both continuation task of narration and argumentation can improve the language application ability of the subjects,but their influences are different:（1）Narrative continuation task is more beneficial to enhance the fluency of students’ English writing,especially in terms of writing content and language richness.（2）While argumentative continuation task has a greater impact on the accuracy and complexity of writing than narrative continuation task.Therefore,teachers should take the merits and drawbacks of the two genres into account when selecting the continuation materials for students’ writing training,and note teaching students in line with their gift while avoiding a single genre.Teachers should enable students to try exercising argumentative continuation task on the basis of the training of narrative continuation task so as to promote the quality of English writing teaching.