An Empirical Study On The Effect Of The Task-based Teaching To Primary School English Writing Teaching

Writing, as one of the difficult points of primary school English teaching, hasreceived much attention by many primary school teachers, but its teaching effect isstill not satisfied. Most educators considered Task-based Language Teaching as a veryeffective approach to English teaching. It is gradually accepted and applied by moreand more English teachers in primary schools and middle schools. However, someteachers of the primary schools and middle schools gradually applied Task-basedWriting Teaching. Nevertheless, most researchers engage their attention to theempirical study of Task-based Writing Teaching for middle schools, seldom forprimary schools so far. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an experimental study ofTask-based Writing Teaching for primary schools, so as to check the affectivity andfeasibility of Task-based Writing Teaching in primary schools.This research aims to explore the effect on the Task-based Teaching to primaryschool English writing teaching, and find out the way to improve the primary schoolEnglish writing teaching, the research questions are specified below:1. Is Task-based Writing Teaching more effective than the traditional WritingTeaching in primary schools?2. Is Task-based Writing Teaching more facilitative in cultivating andmaintaining the students interests and confidence in English writing?In the empirical study,94subjects from Foshan No.1Primary School ofGuangdong Province participate in the research. The subjects have basically the sameeducational background. Before the experiment, the final exam of the previous term isconducted as the pretest. Also, a questionnaire is distributed to collect somebackground information about their writing performance. During the experiment, theExperimental Class, Class4(45students) are taught by the Task-based WritingTeaching. The Control Class, Class2(49students) receives traditional ProductWriting Teaching. Both classes are taught by the same teacher, use the same textbook,workbook and the same learning schedule. After the experiment, all the94students ofthe Experimental Class and the Control Class participate the test of writingcompositions as the post-test. Then, the students do the post-questionnaire. After the experiment for a semester, data of the pretest mean total scores of theexam, the pre-test and post-test mean composition scores, the pre-test and post-testlanguage mean scores of the compositions, the pre-test and post-test content meanscores of the compositions, the numbers of pre-test and post-test mean total words of acomposition, the numbers of the pre-test and post-test mean total sentences of acomposition of the Experimental Class and Control Class are collected. The data ofpre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire are also collected. Using the statisticalsoftware SPSS Statistics V17.0, data are compared and analyzed on the teachingeffect by the Independent Samples T-test.The experimental results show that, before the experiment, there is no significantdifference in the pre-test mean composition scores, the pre-test language mean scoresof the compositions, the pre-test content mean scores of the compositions, thenumbers of pre-test mean total words of a composition, the numbers of the pre-testmean total sentences of a composition and more detail data about the pre-testcompositions between the Experimental Class and the Control Class. After theexperiment, there is significant difference in the post-test mean composition scores,the post-test language mean scores of the compositions, the post-test content meanscores of the compositions, the numbers of post-test mean total words of acomposition, the numbers of the post-test mean total sentences of a composition andmore detail data about the pre-test compositions between the Experimental Class andControl Class.It is concluded that comparing with the traditional Product Writing Teaching,Task-based Writing Teaching is more effective to improve the primary schoolstudents writing competence. Furthermore, Task-based Writing Teaching caneffectively provide an enjoyable learning environment, increase the primary schoolstudents active learning opportunities, and improve their interests and confidence inEnglish writing.