The Application Of Process-genre Approach In The Teachin Of Writin In Vocational College

EFL writing ability is one important skill in foreign language learning and teaching, so ithas been widely considered in second language acquisition. As a complex productive andcommunicative skill, English writing is probably the most difficult of all themacro-skills—listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating, and that many nativespeakers can hardly master it. For foreign language learners, the challenges are even enormous.As mentioned above, EFL writing has drawn much attention gradually. Therefore, improvingcollege students’English writing proficiency and finding an effective teaching approach hasbecome an urgent need for both teacher and students.In the field of writing instruction, there are three popular approaches: the productapproach, the process approach, the genre approach. Among these three approaches, theproduct approach occupies a dominant position for a long run. Process approach was raisedabroad aiming at the defect of product approach in 1970s and receives significant attention athome recently. However, in the practical teaching process, the weakness of process approachcomes up. On this occasion, researchers begin to explore new teaching methods. Afteranalyzing the benefits and disadvantages of the above three approaches, the author introducesthe necessity and feasibility of combining them and adopts the process-genre approach, whichwas put forward by Badger and White(2000).The principles of the approach are: writing takesplace in a social context, and is a reflection of a particular purpose; through the analysis ofmodel text and discussion with peer learners and teachers, learners can get sufficient input fromtext, teachers and peer learners; in the process of writing, learners can acquire linguisticknowledge and strategy training. Process-genre approach improves the disadvantages of thetraditional teaching methods. It not only plays a directing role of teacher and model text, butalso stimulates the students’initiative which improves the writing proficiency and languagecommunicative ability to a great extent. Based on this, the thesis advocates applyingprocess-genre approach into English writing instruction, with the purpose to improve thewriting teaching quality of vocational college.To achieve the purpose, this thesis first introduces the research background abroad and athome and also the theoretical basis of process-genre approach. Then, the three approacheswhich were popular in EFL writing teaching field are presented, as well as the comparison of their defects. Based on this, the author indicates that process-genre approach, which is theintegration of the three approaches, is the most effective teaching approach in vocationalcollege writing class. This thesis uses the research products of process-genre approach ofBadger and White for reference, discusses the operating procedures in the writing teachingprocess of certain genre, and attempts to explore the specific teaching model on the theoreticalbasis of process-genre approach, in order to make sure that to what extent the process-genreapproach can improve vocational college students’writing proficiency. On these grounds, theauthor put forward three hypotheses to be tested: 1. the process-genre approach is helpful inimproving vocational college students’writing proficiency. 2. The process-genre approach canimprove the students’writing ability in the profound-level features of language. 3. Theprocess-genre approach will enhance students’communicative ability.To fulfill the study aim, the author conducts an experiment study to determine to whatextent the process-genre approach will improve the students’writing ability when applied inEFL writing instruction of non-English majors. Experiment is carried out among 54 students inShandong Xiehe College for one term. Qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted in theexperiment, including two writing tests, individual interviews, two questionnaires andclassroom observation. Both experiment class and control class take the two tests, but onlyexperiment class is given individual interviews, two questionnaires and classroom observation.After the teaching experiment, the author processes the experimental data by means ofSPSS and makes a detailed analysis of the results. According to the analysis, the process-genreapproach is confirmed to be feasible and effective in college English writing teaching. It notonly helps to enhance students’communicative ability in writing process but also makes a greatcontribution to the improvement of their writing proficiency. The study also indicates that theprocess-genre approach is more effective than the traditional approach in improving learners’profound-level features of language. In the end, the author points out the limitations of theresearch, discusses the pedagogical implications of the approach from different angles and putsforward some suggestions on the further research.