The Application Of The Production-oriented Approach To Continuation Task Teaching In Senior High School

Continuation task is a new type taken into English test in NMET.With the reform of NMET,for the first time,Chongqing has taken the continuation task into the English test in NMET,which also means that the continuation task brings challenges to the teaching and learning of English in Chongqing high schools.The Production-oriented Approach(POA)has lately been popular in university English classes,and multiple studies have shown that it has positive effects on productive language skills.However,only a few practitioners have employed POA to teach continuation task in the past.As a result,the current research attempts to apply POA to senior high school continuation task training and poses two research questions: 1)What are the POA’s effects on students’ attitudes towards continuation task? 2)What are the POA’s effects on students’ continuation task writing competence?The current study is an experimental study in which two parallel classes of Chongqing University Town No.1 Middle School participated in an 8-week teaching experiment on continuation task.The POA is utilized in the experimental class(EC),which comprises 45 students,while the control class(CC),which also has 45 students,follows the traditional reading-writing course.POA’s effects on senior high school students’ attitudes towards continuation task are evaluated through questionnaires and classroom observation,with the results from the questionnaires being further examined using SPSS.Furthermore,tests are conducted to examine the impact of POA on the capacity of senior high school students to compose continuation task.Students’ writings are also scored using the Criteria for Assessing Continuation Task of NMET,and data from writing tests are analyzed using SPSS.The following are the conclusions of this study: first,POA has a favorable influence on senior high school students’ attitudes about the continuation task,i.e.,POA is effective in improving students’ cognition of the continuation task,behavioral intentions,and affect.It can be seen that students have better cognition of the continuation task,more than half of the students behave better in conceptualizing writing content,organizing structure,and choosing and using language,and students become more active and creative in continuation writing class.Second,POA is useful in improving senior high school students’ continuation task writing skill,i.e.,POA can improve students’ ability to modify continuation task language,improve and enrich continuation task material,and improve the cohesion and coherence of continuation task structure.The current study makes the following recommendations for teachers and students based on the findings reported above.In continuation task teaching,teachers should pay more attention to the integration of input and output,create appropriate simulated scenarios to activate students’ imagination and motivation for better plotting,and thoughtfully design the assessing stage,and provide students with adequate and relevant feedback.Students should read a lot of stories and participate actively in the continuation task writing class.