| Thinking capacities are mentioned as one of the English subject core competencies in the English Curriculum Standards for General High School(2017 Edition revised in 2020)to underline its importance in English teaching.Moreover,front-line education has not paid enough attention to innovativeness as one of the thinking capacities.Specifically,in the domain of English writing,there is a recurring problem of “score-oriented” instruction,which neglects the development of students’ innovative writing talents.Furthermore,psychology and education are interdependent and cannot be separated.The need for cognitive closure(NFCC)has received a lot of attention in the field of social cognitive psychology.Some researchers have used this concept to demonstrate that students’ NFCC levels can be a novel approach to addressing issues in education,although the empirical evidence is still somewhat limited.Based on theories such as Lay Epistemic Theory,Narrative theory,and Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis,the study designed the innovativeness-oriented teaching model in an attempt to answer the following questions:(1)What is the relationship between the level of NFCC and innovativeness in English writing?(2)How does the innovativenessoriented writing teaching model influence students’ level of NFCC?(3)What is the influence of the innovativeness-oriented writing teaching model on students’ innovativeness in English writing through NFCC? These questions are explained by the following empirical studies.Using students’ English scores from their most recent exams,the author selected a total of 102 students from two classes in the second year of a senior high school in Haikou,Hainan Province,to participate in this experiment.First,all students would take a pre-test including a questionnaire and a continuation writing task to obtain initial NFCC scores,general composition scores,and writing innovativeness scores.The author ranked all the pre-test NFCC scores from highest to lowest and selected the students who ranked in the top 75% of NFCC scores in the two classes as the experimental group Group One(37 students)and the control group Group Two(38 students).During the one-month experimental period,only the students in the experimental group followed the innovativeness-oriented writing teaching model,while the control group maintained the traditional writing instructional model.The innovativeness-oriented writing teaching model consisted of task clarification and order establishment before writing;students are helped to extend the thinking process and reduce the difficulty of thinking during writing;students should dispel the doubts and obtain timely reinforcement after writing;teachers provided emotional support throughout.Both groups of students would be tested again at the end of the experiment on the level of NFCC,and the general composition scores and writing innovativeness scores will be collected in the posttest.Interviews will be administered to both teachers and students once before and after the experiment.Finally,after analyzing and discussing the data,it is concluded that: there is a negative relationship between NFCC level and English writing innovativeness;the innovativeness-oriented writing teaching model can effectively reduce students’ NFCC level and indirectly increase students’ writing innovativeness through the mediating effect of NFCC.This paper presents fresh perspectives for future research on English writing instruction and provides additional empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of the innovativenessoriented writing teaching model in reducing the level of NFCC and increasing writing innovativeness.In response to the findings,this study offers some suggestions on how to optimize students’ writing innovativeness development,encourages educators to pay attention to and intervene in students’ NFCC level as early as possible,and explores a variety of English writing instructional approaches based on students’ NFCC characteristics. |
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