| Over the past decade, an increasing number of English researchers have begun to draw their attention to the traditional Chinese teaching principles. "Gaining new knowledge by reviewing old" was once considered as an effective learning method adopted by our forefathers. According to Van Pattern (Skehan, 1998), "language input" should convert into "language intake", otherwise, the language acquisition can not occur. Besides, the "language intake" must be characterized by "frequency" and "saliency". Through memorization, the language information can "frequently" and "saliently" be repeated, which finally leads to its effective "internalization". Akinson and Shiffrin (1968) also classified human memory and pointed out that the only way to store information in the long-term memory is through "rehearsal".Based on the previous theories and studies, the present author attempts to apply "text memorization" to facilitate EFL writing of the Chinese non-English majors. The main difference between "text memorization" and pure "vocabulary memorization" is that the former belongs to "meaningful learning" rather than "rote learning". In non-native language context, English writing teaching meets the unprecedented obstacles. The English sentences written by Chinese students, affected by "negative transfer", are filled with grammatical mistakes. In addition, due to the lack of vocabulary, students tend to use simple words repeatedly, inaccurately and improperly. In terms of text organization, most compositions suffer poor consistency and coherence. Students write down whatever comes to their mind. EFL writing as "productive learning" must depend on "receptive learning". As the old saying goes, "the cleverest housewife cannot cook a meal without rice" and "one cannot make bricks without straw". If there are no "vocabulary storage" "phrase storage" "grammar storage" "culture storage" or even "world knowledge storage" in one's long-term memory, the writing process would resemble dead-end water with no source available. All the inspiration during writing stems from solid accumulations. As Sinclair puts it, "language is memory-based formula system." (Sinclair, 1991) The creative usage of "formula" often well reflects one's language proficiency.To further explore the effectiveness of "text memorization" on EFL writing, the author carried out an experimental study in a private college in Shanghai from September to December in 2008. 80 non-English majors from two classes served as subjects. Besides the routine curriculum, 40 students in the experimental class were required to recite the English texts from New Concept Three. The results are demonstrated in the form of one questionnaire and two writing tests. All the data collected are inserted into SPSS (11.0) for analysis. The questionnaires show that through "text memorization", which serves as an auxiliary teaching method, students are no longer reluctant to recite English texts. They gradually begin to accept and recognize that recitation plays an important role in English learning, especially in EFL writing. The questionnaires also reveal that students are able to employ various methods of memorization. Their attitudes towards this teaching practice changed from passive to active. The EFL writing scores before and after the treatments demonstrate that "text memorization" provides effective "language input", and thus enhances students' "language output". The impact of "negative transfer" decreases. The results indicate that Students' EFL writing abilities improve greatly in terms of vocabulary, language fluency and organization, with grammar as an exception. The holistic EFL writing levels are also higher than before after the treatments. According to the results of this experiment, the author concludes that the traditional teaching method stores both "language knowledge" and "language sense" into students' long-term memory before racking one's brain during EFL writing. This indicates "text memorization" tasks are effective for improving students' proficiency and confidence in EFL writing.
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