A Study On The Impact Of Continuation Writing On Senior High School Students’ English Writing Anxiety And Writing Performance

As an expressive skill,English writing can fully reflect students’ thinking ability and comprehensive language competence.The National English Curriculum Standard for General Senior High School(2017 Edition,revised in 2020)puts forward higher requirements on senior high school students’ English writing ability: students can choose appropriate vocabulary,grammatical structure and cohesive device in writing to improve the coherence of language expression and make the contexts more cohesive(Ministry of Education,2020: 37).However,senior high school students’ English writing level is not optimistic,such as,weak writing motivation and different levels of writing anxiety.Therefore,it is particularly important to explore feasible teaching modes to alleviate the writing anxiety of senior high school students and improve their writing ability.Continuation writing is one kind of writing teaching method that can effectively promote language acquisition,which was proposed by Professor Wang Chuming in 2012 based on the synergy theory.It is of great significance to stimulate learners’ interval drive,enhance their self-confidence,relieve their writing anxiety and improve their writing level.The literature shows that the related researches on the role of continuation writing in promoting language acquisition at home and abroad still focused on the language factors,and there are few researches on the emotional factors which affect learners’ writing level.Therefore,this study attempts to apply the continuation writing to English writing teaching in senior high school,aiming at alleviating senior high school students’ English writing anxiety and improving their English writing level.A 12-week teaching experiment was carried out in this study in a senior high school in Zhangzhou City from September to December in 2022.96 students from two classes of Grade two were selected as experiment participants.Class 5 was chosen as the experimental class and continuation writing was applied to English writing teaching,while Class 6 as control class,and the traditional teaching method was applied to English writing teaching.This study aimed to verify the following two hypotheses: 1.Continuation writing can better improve senior high school students’ English writing performance than traditional teaching method.2.Continuation writing can better alleviate the writing anxiety of senior high school students than traditional teaching method.At the end of the experiment,9 students from the experimental class were chosen for an interview,which aimed to confirm the data of this study.The results indicate that: 1.Continuation writing can better improve senior high school students’ English writing performance than traditional teaching method.After the experiment,the average writing score of students in the experimental class(m=16.25)was significantly higher than that of students in the control class(m=14.34),and there was a significant difference between the two classes(p=0.008<0.05)in the average writing score.2.Continuation writing can better alleviate the writing anxiety of senior high school students than traditional teaching method.After the experiment,the average score of students’ English writing anxiety in the experimental class(m=2.87)was lower than that of students in the control class(m=3.12),and there was a significant difference between the two classes(p=0.006<0.05)in the average score of English writing anxiety.Specifically,after the experiment,the average score of students’ physical anxiety,avoidance anxiety and cognitive anxiety in the experimental class was respectively lower than that of students in the control class(m=2.64<2.89、m=3.11<3.35、m=2.85<3.11),and there was a significant difference between the two classes in the average score of physical anxiety,avoidance anxiety and cognitive anxiety(p<0.05).On the basis of the research results above,this paper puts forward some suggestions on the English writing teaching of continuation writing in senior high school from the following two aspects: reducing students’ writing anxiety and improving students’ writing level,in order to enhance students’ self-confidence in English writing,alleviate their English writing anxiety and improve their English writing performance.