Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
1.1.1 The Importance of English Writing Teaching in Senior High School
Among the five language skills of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China,2017), as an expressive skill, writing plays a key role in expressing opinions and exchanging information. As the most difficult part of language output, English writing reflects students’ comprehensive language competence of both language knowledge and language usage. Those who can write well are good users of English. In other words, English writing represents English learners’ comprehensive ability of English language.
English writing and listening, speaking, reading, viewing and other skills are teaching purposes as well as teaching process including methods. Writing is an indispensable part of senior high school English teaching. In addition, the English writing score (25 points) accounts for about 17% of the total score (150 points) of the college entrance examination, which also shows that the importance of English writing teaching cannot be underestimated.
The teaching of senior high school English writing plays an important role in improving students' English writing ability. Therefore, it is feasible and necessary to study the effects of English writing teaching approach on senior high school students' English writing.
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1.2 Research Purpose and Significance
Senior high school is an important stage of English teaching and learning in China. During this period, it is necessary for teachers to take some actions to improve students' writing ability. But the fact is that the current situation of English writing teaching in senior high school is unsatisfactory.
From the perspective of students, there are problems as follows:
Firstly, students have a negative attitude towards writing. They are psychologically anxiety of writing. In addition, they’re not willing to learn how to write, holding the opinion that writing is a simple process of translating the specific information, ignoring the proper exercise.
Secondly, the content of writing is empty. Students feel speechless on the content of the composition, with writing so few words, the content is monotonous and pale.
Thirdly，students' basic language skills are very weak and their writing language is plain and not vivid. When writing, students cannot find the right words or phrases to express their points of view.
Fourthly, the writing work is loosely organized. The sense of coherence between sentences and between paragraphs is weak and lack of logic. The main problem of text structure is that the cohesive words or topic sentences are ignored, which leads to disordered sentences and unsmooth writing.
Fifthly, students don't form good writing habits. They don’t make outline before writing, and they can't revise the writing text after writing, so some obvious mistakes such as misspelling, misuse of tense and voice, can't be found and corrected.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Concept Definition
2.1.1 Activity
The word "activity" originated from the Latin word "act", and its basic connotation is "doing"(Wan,2015). The related overview of "activities" originated from Rousseau's "pay attention to children's activities". Later, Dewey combined "activity" with philosophy and psychology (Li,1987). With the development of the research, the concept of "activity" has been constantly supplemented and improved. In different disciplines, "activity" has different meanings: In physiology, "activity" refers to the contraction of muscles or the process of continuous evolution of living cells; In psychology, "activity" refers to consciousness or will; In pedagogy, "activity" is often regarded as a learning pattern, which refers to a series of changes produced in order to achieve a goal. Therefore, the "activities" discussed in this paper point to the activities in pedagogy, focusing on a series of language practice activities carried out by students in the classroom in order to achieve the teaching objectives.
2.1.2 The View of English Learning Activities
The View of English Learning Activities is evolved from the concept of activity. Since Rousseau put forward "activities", the "activity theory of learning", represented by Leontyev and Kalipilin, was born correspondingly. This theory emphasizes that learners are the subjects of learning activities, and the learning activities they participate in have special characteristics. It takes educators a certain amount of time and energy to complete the design (Li, 1979).
In 1978, Vygotsky (1978) put forward "activity theory", which marks the formal formation of activity theory. He believes that subject, object, tool, rule, community and division of labor are the basic elements of a completed activity system.
In modern times, Swiss psychologist Piaget founded genetic epistemology, which explains the law of individual cognitive development from the perspective of psychology, emphasizing that learners' knowledge of the object originates from learners' activities of the object, and vigorously advocates “activity teaching method” in teaching, and then develops into “activity teaching theory”(Zhang, 2001).
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2.2 The Research Situation of Writing Teaching
For many years, English writing has been the focus of many experts and scholars. With the development of various writing theories and practice, various teaching approach of English writing have been formed, such as the product approach, the process approach and the task-based approach.
2.2.1 The Product Approach
The product approach is a traditional writing instruction which focuses more on the final product of writing (Nunan & David, 1991). Based on the behaviorism theory represented by Skinner, the product approach appeared relatively early. Behaviorism theory interprets the product approach as a process in which teachers stimulate students and then students react. In this process, the teacher is the center of teaching. Before 1970s, the product approach has dominated much of the writing teaching which takes place in English classes.
Marianne Celce-Murcia (1979) says that in the mid-1960s, product approach was very popular, and teaching writing in high schools and colleges primarily focused on the students' writing product not on their writing strategies and writing process. Penny Ur (2012) analyzes some disadvantages in the writing of product approach, for example, the teacher always focuses on the mistakes of words and grammar in students’ compositions. He also gives some practical solutions to these problems.
Many Chinese researchers and teachers have studied this writing method. Zhuang(2017) points out that the general procedures of product approach are: First，the teacher shows, analyzes and explains the model article, then trains the students to write like the model article; Then, the teacher corrects, analyzes and comments the articles. After that, the students imitate and rewrite the sentences. The whole process of writing teaching is the process of grammar training, rhetorical devices and writing skill.
英语论文怎么写
Chapter 3 The Construction of "Five Steps and Two Assessments" Writing Teaching Mode Based on the View of English Learning Activities ... 23
3.1 The Theoretical Basis of "Five Steps and Two Assessments" Writing Teaching Mode Based on the View of English Learning Activities .................. 23
3.1.1 Schema Theory .......................................... 23
3.1.2 Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy of Objectives ................... 25
Chapter 4 Research Design ...................................... 46
4.1 Research Questions ...................................... 46
4.2 Research Procedures .................................... 46
4.3 Research Tools .............................................. 47
Chapter 5 Data Analysis ......................................... 51
5.1The Effects of "Five Steps and Two Assessments" Writing Teaching Mode Based on the View of English Learning Activities on Students' Writing Ability .......................... 51
5.1.1 Analysis of Pre-test Writing Scores in the Control Class and the Experimental Class ...................................... 51
5.1.2 Analysis of Post-test Writing Scores in the Control Class and the Experimental Class .............................. 52
Chapter 5 Data Analysis
5.1 The Effects of "Five Steps and Two Assessments" Writing Teaching Mode Based on the View of English Learning Activities on Students' Writing Ability
5.1.1 Analysis of Pre-test Writing Scores in the Control Class and the Experimental Class
We use SPSS26.0 to perform an independent sample T-test on the two pre-test scores, and the test results are shown in Tables 5-1 and 5-2:
英语论文参考
Chapter 6 Conclusion
6.1 Main Research Results
After a 12-week teaching experiment, the "Five Steps and Two Assessments" writing teaching mode based on the View of English Learning Activities has been proven effective in improving students' writing ability. Through the questionnaire survey, it is found that this writing teaching mode is more conducive to promoting students to correct their writing attitudes and develop good writing habits than the traditional writing teaching mode. The main conclusions of this study are as follows:
1. Through the independent sample T-test analysis of the writing scores of the students in the experimental class and the control class, it is found that the students’ average writing score of the experimental class has increased significantly, reaching 9.622 points, while the control class has only slightly improved, with an average score of 2.156 points. The "Five Steps and Two Assessments" writing teaching mode based on the View of English Learning Activities has a positive effect on students' writing scores.
2. The students’ writing scores are analyzed from the three aspects of writing content, structure and language, and an independent sample T-test is carried out. The results show that this mode improves students’ writing content, structure and language, and the improvement of content is the most obvious. In the teaching mode of "Five Steps and Two Assessments", the teaching activities designed through the steps of "Leading-in, Reading and Comprehending" enable students to explore the theme of the text better. In the group discussion before writing, students brainstorm and broaden their writing thinking. After the teaching experiment, the analysis of the students' writing texts in the experimental class are richer in content and longer in length. Through a series of learning and understanding, application and practice activities, students can fully study the text and analyze the text structure, so as to reasonably construct their own writing text and use different cohesive words to increase the coherence of writing. Through the teaching activities designed by the steps of "Imitating and Writing", students imitate the language style of the reading text, so as to pay more attention to the accuracy of language use in writing.
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