An Empirical Study On Reading-to-write Approach To Teaching English Writing In Junior High School

It is known to all that writing is one of the four basic skills of English learning. Theteaching of writing has then become an indispensable part of junior middle school’sEnglish teaching which aims to practice the students’ integrated ability to use the languageknowledge flexibly in the whole English learning process. After years of teaching practice,the author found that writing in English has always been a difficult job to students who arelanguage learning beginners. Meantime, writing is also the weakest segment of Englishteaching.Targeted at solving the English writing learning and teaching problem in junior highschool, the thesis reports an empirical study of reading-to-write approach. The study, basedon the theories of the Input Hypothesis, Output Hypothesis, and Schema Theory, proposesan integrative approach of reading as input and writing as output to the teaching of writing.The experimental study attempts to collect empirical evidence for positive effect of such anapproach on students’writing achievement and their attitudes towards writing.The study compares the experimental class with the controlled class. The subjects are89students from two classes of Grade Nine from a junior high school. The scores of pre-test and post-test are collected and analysed for the changes of students’ writingachievements; two questionnaires are employed to examine whether the new teachingapproach helps develop the students’ strategies and whether it stimulates their interest inwriting.The major findings are presented as follows: Reading-to-write Instruction canimprove students’ writing performance and arouse their interest and self-confidence. Theresearch also indicates that teachers face more challenges under Reading-to-writeapproach. They should use strategies correctly in the process of teaching and developthemselves through the teaching practice.The implications are that writing can be taught through reading, and writing can beintegrated with reading to maximize the possibility of using language input.