A Survey Of Senior High School Students’ English Writing Ability Based On China’s Standard Of English Language Ability

English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017 Edition Revised2020)stated that English writing is a common form of language use and is the basis for developing language application skills.With the development of society,the status of English writing is getting higher and higher.The situation of senior high school students’ English writing is worthy of our study.However,through literature review,the author finds that there are just a few articles on English writing ability survey and fewer studies focusing on investigating students’ English writing ability based on the China’s Standard of English Language Ability(CSE)developed by National Education Examinations Authority.Most of the research subjects are college students or English majors,while there are few high senior school students as research subjects.Therefore,this study will investigate the level of English writing ability of senior high school students and difference of students’ English writing ability between grades and genders.Therefore,the following research questions are proposed:(1)What is the level of English writing ability of senior high school students?(2)Are there any significant differences of the English writing abilities of senior high school students between different grades?(3)Are there any significant differences of the English writing abilities of senior high school students between different genders?This study took questionnaires and interviews as research instruments,with 242 senior high school students as subjects.The questionnaire refers to the overall writing ability scale,sub-writing scale of writing ability and self-assessment of writing ability scale in the CSE.In this study,according to the research of Pan Mingwei,one of the authors of the writing ability scale,the dimension of the writing ability scale in the questionnaire is divided into five aspects: language quality,article structure,writing content,writing specification and writing expression strategies.The questionnaire data were put into SPSS 26 for descriptive analysis and independent samples T-test.In addition,the recording of interviews were transcribed to text for analysis.The major findings are as follows:(1)Senior high school students’ English writing ability as a whole is at medium level,which indicates that students are basically able to achieve the requirements expressed in the descriptors of language quality,article structure,writing content,writing specification and writing expression strategies.Students perform best in the writing specification and worst in the language quality.(2)There are no significant differences in the English writing ability of senior high school students between different grades.(3)There are no significant differences in the English writing ability of senior high school students between different genders.This research helps to understand the current situation and problems of senior high school students’ English writing ability,and on this basis,three suggestions are made for improving students’ writing ability.(1)Teachers should pay more attention to teach students’ language quality and writing expression strategies.(2)Teachers should study the CSE carefully and design their own writing teaching content and activities based on the descriptors in the CSE in order to explore students’ writing ability and make adjustments to their teaching accordingly.(3)Teachers should focus on writing lessons and point out mistakes when correcting writing,and encourage students to read.