A Survey Of Teacher's Mediation In Senior High School English Writing Teaching

Senior high school is a significant period to develop students' English writing ability.The improvement of students' writing ability is inseparable from the teacher-as-mediator.However,there are few researches on teacher's mediation(TM)in senior high school English writing teaching(EWT)at present.Therefore,this study is conducted to research the TM in senior high school EWT,attempting to explore the current situation of the application of TM and to find out the existing problems.Finally,this study puts forward some pedagogical implications,which can further promote teachers' professional competence in writing teaching and improve students' writing ability.Based on Feuerstein's mediation theory and twelve features of mediation,the author adopts the instruments of questionnaire,observation and interview to investigate 230 senior high students and 40 teachers from three schools in Bozhou,Anhui Province,aiming to explore the following three questions:(1)What are the teachers' and students' perceptions on the importance of TM?(2)How is the teachers' practice on TM in EWT?(3)How do teachers apply the TM in English writing classes?The research findings are as follows: firstly,both teachers and students have realized the importance of TM,and teachers' awareness is higher than students in general.Besides,there are significant differences between teachers' and students' perceptions on the features of “purpose beyond the here and now” and “goal-setting”.Secondly,teachers practice well in all the twelve aspects,though their practice is lower than perceptions on TM.Specifically,there are significant differences between teachers' practice and perceptions in terms of the features of “control of own behaviour” and “goal-setting”.Furthermore,they fail to perform well enough in aspects of “challenge”,“awareness of change”,“a belief in positive outcomes” and “individuality”.Finally,teachers prefer to utilize the ways of classroom questioning,organizing cooperative learning,composition correction and positive feedback when putting the TM into practice in all steps of writing class.According to these findings,five suggestions on autonomous learning,cooperative learning,correction and feedback,and writing topics and objectives are put forward as references for promoting teachers' practice on mediation in senior high school EWT,and improving students' writing ability.