A Study On The Application Of Process Writing Approach To English Writing Teaching In Junior Middle School

As a very important part of English learning,writing reflects students’ cognitive level and comprehensive ability to use English.However,it has always been difficult to cultivate students’ writing ability.Thus writing has become a weak link of English teaching.The traditional product writing approach focuses on students’ writing products and lays great emphasis on the verbal and grammatical correctness while it does not attach much importance to the writing process,writing strategies and writing techniques.The approach neglects students’ initiative,which makes students very passive in class.Students gradually lose interest in writing,and their writing ability cannot be improved all the time.In order to solve the problems mentioned above,many researchers and teachers apply process writing approach to writing teaching and prove its feasibility and availability.However,little attention is given to the writing teaching in junior middle school.Based on the writing teaching in a junior middle school,the author first investigates students’ difficulties in writing and writing needs.Then,the author conducts an experimental research to explore the influence of process writing approach on students’ affective attitude to writing,the application of writing strategies and writing levels of the students from two classes in Grade seven.The research mainly follows the following procedures: First,questionnaire and interview are adopted to conduct an investigation of the status quo of writing from the perspectives of students and teachers respectively.Second,process writing approach is applied in experimental class,while product writing approach is applied in control class.Third,data are collected and analyzed to get research findings.The major research findings are summarized as follows: 1.Students have writing difficulties in content,language and organization,among which the difficulties in language and content are more obvious;students have strong desires for English writing instruction,which shows that writing teaching needs to be improved in termsof teaching content,pre-writing instruction and post-writing feedback.2.Process writing approach has a positive effect on students’ affective attitude to writing and the application of writing strategies,since it improves students’ writing interest,confidence and abilities to use writing strategies.3.The students in experimental class make great progress in writing after the experiment and get higher marks than students in control class.Therefore,this research has proved that process writing approach can enhance students’ writing level to some degree.On the basis of these findings,this research puts forward the following suggestions for improving writing instruction in junior middle school: First,teachers should change their traditional teaching ideas about writing teaching and try to apply process writing approach in their writing instruction.Second,in order to apply process writing approach effectively,teachers should adjust and optimize their writing instruction according to the real situation.Finally,different kinds of feedback should be offered to students to improve their writing.