Process Approach To Teaching Writing: An Action Research In A Chinese High School

In recent years, more and more teachers have realized the important role of writing in English language teaching. The trend seems to have been reinforced by the new writing objectives in the newly promulgated Senior High School English Curriculum Criterion and new marking criteria of NMET. Yet, despite the strenuous efforts made by teachers and students, English writing is still the most challenging and threatening course for most students. One major factor accounting for this fact is that our teaching practice still falls back on the traditional product-oriented approach. Such practice seems to have ignored cognitive factors of the writing process. The writing process is recursive and non-linear. While writing, students exhibit a variety of behaviors such as pre-writing, drafting, reviewing, revising and editing.The major concern of the present thesis is to explore and apply a new process-oriented approach to teaching writing that may be suitable for Chinese high school and to verify its effectiveness and feasibility. The study attempts to answer the following research questions:1) To what extent is the new approach to teaching writing helpful in changing the students' attitudes and beliefs towards writing?2) Can students'writing competence,both in content and language, be enhanced through the new approach?3) Can students in the experimental class do better than those in the control class not only in untimed composition but also in timed composition?The subjects are 121 students in senior two from an ordinary high school in Shanxi Province. During four months' instructional intervention, the teacher carried out the process approach to teaching writing in the experimental class. Three instruments were used in the research: two questionnaires related to writing attitudes and beliefs; scores of five compositions concerning content and language; final exam grades. By analyzing the collected data, the research finds: 1) after the experiment the students were feeling more confident in writing than before. They gained interest in writing and welcomed this new approach to teaching writing. Their attitudes and beliefs towards writing changed dramatically. 2) the students' ability in meaning development-has improved greatly, but not in language accuracy. 3) not only in untimed composition but also in timed composition can students in the experimental class do better than those in the control class.It is hoped that this thesis will help the Chinese high school English teachers to have a better understanding of the process writing and more and more teachers can apply this approach to their own teaching practice.