An Action Research On Application Of Comparative Continuation To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

With the deepening internationalization of China,English writing,as an important ability to cultivate students’ core competencies of the subject,should be further promoted in practice.In addition,English writing teaching(especially in high school)also holds an irreplaceable position in China’s English teaching.In English writing teaching,as traditional exercises can no long meet the urgent needs of students to improve their language abilities,the writing mode of"comparative continuation" was proposed to tackle the problem.Put forward by Wang Chuming(2016),"comparative continuation" was another revolutionary attempt after "reading-writing integrated continuation"("continuation task").As a variant of "continuation task","comparative continuation"enhances interaction and facilitates the alignment effect through a huge number of read-backs.Furthermore,"comparative continuation" is applicable for various writing styles,which makes up for the weakness of "continuation task" of insufficient interaction and limitations on literary genres.However,when it comes to current English writing teaching in high school,the new writing mode of "comparative continuation" is rarely put into practice nor applied by foreign language teachers when they teach writing,and there are still few related studies.Therefore,with "action research" as the major research method,the paper conducts an empirical study on "comparative continuation" for high school English writing teaching,in order to address two problems.First,the paper probes into the impact of "comparative continuation" on high school students’ English writing proficiency,motivations,and attitudes;second,the paper aims to apply "comparative continuation" to high school English writing teaching and explore the proper forms of application.By adopting such research methods as conducting questionnaire surveys,interviews,and tests,the paper implements two rounds of "action research" in the whole semester,and takes two ordinary classes in Grade 12 in a high school as examples.The data of the two questionnaires and scores of three tests are imported into SPSS for analysis and the paper delves into students’ writing texts at various stages and interviews with teachers and students.On that basis,the results of the study are as follows:"comparative continuation"can be applied to high school English writing teaching and is conducive to learning.Besides,"comparative continuation" can enhance students’ English writing proficiency by perfecting their "writing language" from three dimensions:advanced-level words and sentences,expression of the original text,and linguistic mistake;and the mode of writing can optimize the "writing content and structure" from two dimensions:key points and logical cohesion.Moreover,"comparative continuation" can increase "writing scores" and improve students’ performance in various styles of writing or the writing of the National College Entrance Exams.In addition,by improving students’ motivations and attitudes of English writing,"comparative continuation" is conducive to the development of English learning&writing habits and thus boosts students’ understanding of knowledge and academic performance.