Effects Of Process Genre Approach On Senior High School Students’ English Writing Ability

English writing ability is an important part of language ability in the English Curriculum for Senior High School(2017)(Ministry of Education 2018).However,in the current English teaching,English writing has not received due attention.On the one hand,since teachers think writing teaching is time-consuming and inefficient,they are more willing to pay attention to teaching other language skills such as listening and reading.On the other hand,students are often discouraged by the difficulties they have in gaining improvement in lexical variety,syntactic complexity and textual coherence of their texts.Therefore,the effect of traditional approach to teaching English writing is far from satisfactory.In order to further improve the quality of English writing teaching in senior high schools,researchers and teachers have put forward process genre approach,which integrates the merits of process approach,genre approach and product approach.Process genre approach divides the writing process into several stages,such as model reading and analyzing,imitating writing,independent writing,editing and revising.This approach is students-oriented and focuses on the writing process,thus creating a favorable environment for students,stimulating their interest in writing,and improving their writing ability.After studying relevant literature both at home and abroad,the author applies process genre approach to writing teaching based on her own teaching practice.Process genre approach is applied in this research and the research questions are listed as follows: 1.What are the effects of process genre approach on the lexical variety,syntactic complexity and textual coherence of students’ writing? 2.What are the effects of process genre approach on students’ attitude towards writing and writing habit? To answer the research questions above,an experiment was conducted in two science classes in a key senior high school in Nanjing from September 2019 to November 2019.During the 16-week experiment,one science class is chosen as the experimental class,the other as the control class.In the experiment,the experimental class was instructed by the process genre approach in writing classes,while the control class was still guided by the traditional product approach.The students of both classes took a pre-test and pre-questionnaire before the research to examine their writing ability,writing habit and attitude towards writing.And after the research,students in both classes took a post-test and post-questionnaires with the same contents as the previous one.In addition,students of different levels in the experimental class were chosen to make an interview.The data were collected and analyzed after research.The results are as follows.First,process genre approach can effectively improve senior high school students’ writing ability,which is embodied in the improvement of lexical variety,syntactic complexity and textual coherence of their writing.First,it effectively promotes lexical variety of students’ writing.Students are able to use diverse lexical expressions in their writing.Secondly,it increases syntactic complexity of students’ writing,which entails the improvement in the ratio of clauses(C/S)and the ratio of complex clauses(CC/S)in students’ writing.Finally,it improves textual coherence of students’ writing,which can be seen from their flexible employment of cohesive devices.Second,process genre approach helps students establish proper writing habits,such as writing outline before writing,and revising after writing.What’s more,various kinds of activities stimulate students’ interest and enhance their confidence in English writing.When applying process genre approach in teaching writing,teachers should pay attention to the following points in the practical application of the process genre approach: First,The choice of writing topic should be in line with students’ interest and needs,and can be selected from current social hot topics,which would both effectively mobilize students’ writing enthusiasm and help them accumulate expressions for future use.Second,teachers should make good use of writing samples by conducting genre analysis on writing samples,and designing a variety of activities to enhance students’ understanding of different genres.In addition,students are required to recite the good expressions in model essay,which will help them to use appropriate expressions when writing articles of corresponding genres in the future.And in the peer evaluation stage,teachers should get students familiarized with the evaluation criteria and ask them to imagine themselves as the audience of the article,which not only helps students whose articles are evaluated get useful advice,but also help those who evaluate the article better understand the evaluation criteria so that they would write correspondingly.Last,teachers should urge students to review the genre knowledge they have learned after class by assigning them to write an article of a certain genre again one or two weeks later to consolidate the knowledge they have learned.This research has probed into the effects of process genre approach on students’ writing ability,attitude towards writing and writing habit,and has offered some advice on the application of this approach,thus proving some further insight of this approach to senior high school teachers.However,there are some limitations,such asthe shortage of time,the small sample and the lack of genres knowledge taught in class.