Action Research On English Writing Teaching In Junior High School Based On Production-Oriented Approach

English writing,as a language output skill,is highly emphasized in English teaching in junior high schools.However,such problems as the students’ insufficient participation in English writing classes,unsatisfactory writing scores,and low interest in writing exist and have a negative impact on the improvement of writing ability.For teachers,they tend to focus more on the writing results and pay less attention to students’ thinking processes and the connection between learning and application.Meanwhile,the lack of innovation in writing teaching,the single way of writing assessment,and the inability to give students feedback in time are also the dilemmas faced in junior high schools English writing teaching.Therefore,improving students English writing skills is a major challenge for English teachers today.The Production-Oriented Approach(POA)is a localized English teaching method proposed by Wen Qiufang to solve the phenomenon of “separation between learning and application” in the English classroom.In recent years,POA has been applied to English writing teaching to solve the separation of “learning” and “application”.This study attempts to apply POA to English writing teaching in junior high schools to increase their classroom participation,and improve their English writing scores.This study attempts to explore the following questions:(1)What is the effect of POA applied to English writing teaching in junior high school on students’ classroom participation?(2)What is the effect of POA applied to English writing teaching in junior high school on students’ English writing scores?This study conducts two rounds of action research in Class A,Grade 8 with 40 students in a junior high school in Zhoukou which lasts for 12 weeks in all.Each round of action research follows the four steps: making the action plan,implementing the action plan,action observation,as well as reflection and summary.Meanwhile,class observation,questionnaires,interviews,and tests are used as research instruments.In order to better understanding of the current situation of junior high school students English writing,the author conducts a preliminary survey on English writing teaching in junior high schools before the implementation of the action research.The“motivating-enabling-assessing” English writing teaching model are employed in the first round of action research.Based on the analysis of classroom observations and interviews result,such problems exist in the process of action implementation:(1)The input materials presented in the driving session are not appropriate enough.(2)The measures teachers take in the enabling session are too simple.(3)students are not very clear about the evaluation criteria in the evaluation session.In the second round of action research,improvement measures are proposed for the problems in the first round,adjusted action plans are implemented,summaries and reflections are made based on the results of classroom observations and interviews.Finally,the questionnaires data and writing test results are analyzed using SPSS 23.0 to draw a conclusion of the two rounds of action research.The result of the study shows that:(1)English writing teaching based on POA in junior high schools can enhance students’ classroom participation and reflect in behavioral participation,emotion participation,and cognitive participation.(2)English writing teaching based on POA in junior high schools can improve students’ English writing scores and manifest in the improvement of the content,language and structure of the English composition.The mean of students’ writing scores increased from 8.53 to11.50.This study investigates the effects of POA on junior high school students English classroom participation and writing scores and the concrete manifestation.It confirms the effectiveness of POA apply to junior high school English writing and provides ideas and methods for improving the teaching of English writing.