A Register-Based Approach To Teaching College English Writing

As one of the most important theories in systemic-functional grammar, register theory is arousing many researchers' interests. The concept of register was first put forward by Reid in 1956 (Ure & Ellis, 1977) and developed by Halliday who defined it as a variety of language distinguished according to use. Halliday presents the semiotic structure of a situation under three headings, field, mode and tenor, which are the three variables of a register. Field refers to the institutional setting in which a piece of language occurs, and embraces not only the subject-matter at hand, but the whole activity of the speaker or participant in a setting. Tenor refers to the relationship between participants and Mode refers to the channel of communication adopted: such as the choice between spoken and written medium. Nowadays, more researchers focus on the application of register theory to foreign language teaching. Some of them discussed the importance and possibility of applying register theory to teaching oral English and translation, however, a few empirical researches on the application of register theory could be found in the previous researches. Taking this situation into consideration, the author spent a semester on an empirical study which applied the register theory to teaching college English writing, aiming to reveal the effects of a register-based approach to teaching college English writing on learners' writing proficiency.Both quantitative and qualitative studies were adopted in the present study. The author chose the non-English major students from Southwest Jiaotong University as the subjects and divided them into the control group and the experimental group. Before the experiment, a writing test was administered to the two groups and the results demonstrated there were no significant differences between them. Then, writing practice was conducted in college comprehensive English class. It was arranged at the end of the study of every unit just because the content for writing was based on the topic of reading. Different approaches to teaching writing were administered to different groups. The register-based approach was carried out in the experimental group while the control group just went through the traditional teaching method during the whole semester. The data for the study were elicited from three writing tests and a questionnaire conducted at the end of the experiment.The results from quantitative analysis indicate that there were no significant differences between the control group and the experimental group in the mid-test. It was not until the end of the semester that the significant difference emerged between the control group and the experimental group, which meant the register-based approach to teaching writing exerted positive effect on learners' writing proficiency.The results from qualitative analysis reveal that learners' sensitivity to register while writing was promoted greatly and they held positive attitudes towards this approach, hoping this approach could be conducted in the future class as well. The register-based approach did play a positive role in cultivating learners' interests in writing, and it is of significance to practice this approach in writing classroom.At the end of the paper, the author summarized a model of a register-based approach to teaching English writing, which was designed on the basis of college comprehensive English course. It is hoped that this approach can be practiced by more language instructors so as to help learners promote their writing proficiency to some degree.