Application Of Blended Learning-based Length Approach To English Writing Teaching In Senior High Schools

English writing,which belongs to the output of language,is an important language skill that English learners must master,but it happens to be the weak link of Chinese students.In order to help students surmount this learning barrier,Professor Wang Chuming from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies put forward a new teaching method—the Length Approach in 2000.It aims to increase students' language output by encouraging them to write longer compositions,so as to achieve the goal of writing to learn and writing to better eventually.Since the teaching method has been put forward,some scholars have confirmed through teaching practice that it can not only achieve good results in college students,but also can be utilized in middle schools to improve students' writing ability and English proficiency.However,how to promote students to write longer has become a new research issue currently.In the Information Age,"Internet +" has become the catalyst of innovation in all fields,and it is no exception in the field of education.The Blended Learning which combines traditional face-to-face teaching with online learning was formed in such a context.It's regarded as the "Learning Revolution in the 21 st Century" that can avoid the weaknesses of the face-to-face or purely online class,and join the advantages of both.It's presumed to be a more effective and feasible method to help hone students' writing skills.Therefore,by constructing a WeChat platform to deliver learning materials and interact with students instantaneously,this study combines Blended Learning with the Length Approach,namely the Blended Learning-based Length Approach,and employs it in English writing teaching,attempting to study the following two questions:(1)What is the effect of the Blended Learning-based Length Approach on promoting senior high school students to write longer?(2)What is the effect of the Blended Learning-based Length Approach on improving senior high school students' writing performance?From September 2017 to December,the author carried out a 4-month experimental teaching in a senior high school in Guangzhou.The participants of the study were 75 students from two parallel classes of senior one,one of which was randomly used as the experimental class(EC)and the other as control class(CC).The teaching of English writing in experimental class was conducted in the Blended Learning-based Length Approach,while the control class adopted the traditional Length Approach.The research tools of the experiment include writing test,questionnaire and interview.Pre-test of the study was carried out at the beginning of the semester and the post-test at the end of the semester.The writing test consists of two parts,namely the writing test based on the Length Approach and the standard writing test.There are a total of eight writing tests based on the Length Approach,which are designed to measure the length of students' compositions.The standard writing test is divided into pre-test and post-test,which are used to check students' writing performance.Writing test and questionnaire are used for quantitative analysis,while interview is used for qualitative analysis.All data are statistically analyzed by using SPSS or Excel.The experimental data analysis shows that: First,in the eight writings based on the Length Approach,the average length of EC students in each writing is longer than that of CC.The average length of the eight writings of EC is 356.399 words,more than CC by 102.323 words.Second,EC and CC's average post-test scores of the standard writing test are higher than that of the pre-test.The EC has increased by 2.676 points,while the CC has increased by 1.579 points.Under the premise that the average scores of the two classes in pre-test were nearly identical,it can be seen that the progress of EC is greater.In addition,combining the results of questionnaire and interview,it can be finally concluded that,by giving enough language input to the students in advance,the teacher is able to raise their confidence and abilities in writing,helping them write compositions longer,and accordingly enhancing their writing performance finally.