A Comparative Study Of The Influence Of Process And Result Methods On Junior Middle School Students' English Writing Ability

Since the New Curriculum Reform was carried out,cultivating students’ subjectivity,autonomy and creativity has been put more emphasis on.Among all the English writing teaching approaches,the process approach is a modern approach.It attaches importance to writing process and students’ writing fluency,which is consistent with the requirements of the New Curriculum Reform.However,although process approach is highly praised,it doesn’t become the mainstream in the English writing teaching classroom in junior high school.Because product approach can yet be regarded as an effective teaching approach in English writing teaching classroom,though it is a traditional teaching approach.Which is the better one,product approach or process approach? Different experts hold different point of views.For this reason,this study identified the following research questions:(1)Which approach is more effective in improving junior high school students’ writing ability,product approach or process approach?(2)What differences occur in terms of content,fluency and accuracy among middle school students taught with product approach and with process approach? To figure out these questions,based on the Behavioristic Learning Theory and the Communicative Teaching Theory,a comparative experiment was conducted,which lasted for eight weeks.Two natural classes of Grade Seven from Middle School 18 of Guangzhou,Class 6 and Class 7,were selected as the experiment subjects.Class 7 was chosen as Experimental Group(42 students),while Class 6 was chosen as Control Group(39 students).In the first week,pre-test was respectively conducted among the two classes with the same writing task.The results of pre-test show that there are no significant differences among the students’ English writing ability of the two classes.At the while-experiment stage,CG was taught by product approach while EG was taught by process approach with the same teaching material as CG.There were respectively three English writing teaching classes between the two classes.In the last week,a post-test was respectively conducted in the two classes.And the writing scores of the students of CG and EG inpre-and post-tests were compared and analyzed.The results of the research show that product approach can improve students’ English writing ability,but not significant.While process approach can improve students’ English writing ability significantly.In addition,there is no significant difference between pre-and post-test among students’ compositions in CG while there is significant difference between those of EG in terms of content;there is no significant difference between pre-and post-test among students’ compositions in CG while there is significant difference between those of EG in terms of fluency;and there is no significant difference between pre-and post-test among students’ compositions in EG while there is significant difference between those of CG in terms of accuracy.On the basis of the above experimental data analysis,the following conclusions were made:(1)Process approach is more effective in improving students’ English writing ability than product approach.(2)There is significant difference among students taught by product approach in terms of accuracy but no significant difference in terms of fluency or content.While there is significant difference among students taught by process approach in terms of fluency or content but no significant difference in terms of accuracy.Based on the comparison of the effects of product approach and process approach on junior high school students’ English writing,the research puts forward some pedagogical implications for EFL writing teaching and EFL writing learning,for example,making preparations before writing,cultivating the habit of revising compositions,putting emphasis on the process as well as the product,cultivating cooperative learning atmosphere in writing class and exploring ways to inspire students’ writing motivation.The study is conducted with the hope of furthering the study on English writing teaching and providing English teachers with certain valuable reference.