Effects Of Production-oriented Approach On Senior High School Students’ Writing Performance

Production-oriented Approach(POA)is a Chinese TEFL approach to address the pressing problem of “learning-using divide” in English instruction in China.The theoretical system of POA has been established after 12 years’ development.This approach has generated great interest of a lot of teachers and experts in foreign language teaching.Ever since then,it has been adopted by universities teachers.However,there are relatively fewer studies on its application to English teaching in senior high school.How to integrate this innovative teaching approach into high school English writing teaching? What problems or contradictions will appear in the process of teaching? What feedback will students and teachers have? All of these need to be addressed at practical level in real classroom.In this research,a mixed research method was adopted.52 students from Class 3,Senior2 and 50 students from Class 6,Senior 2 were selected as the participants in a high school in Yunfu City,Guangdong Province.Class 3,Senior 2 was the control class,and Class 6,Senior2 was the experimental class.The study lasted for 8 weeks.Qualitative(classroom observation,text,and questionnaire)and quantitative data(language test,composition)were collected and analyzed to solve the following two questions: First,compared with traditional instruction,can POA improve senior high school students’ writing performance in terms of language,content and discourse structure better? Second,what effects does the implementation of POA have on the use of target linguistic items(theme-related vocabulary and chunks)in students’ writing?The results show that after the teaching process,there are no significant differences in the total scores of writing task between the two classes(t(100)=-1.247,p>0.05).Students in the experiment class are significantly different from those in the control class on the scores of language(t(100)=-2.808,p<0.05).There are no significant differences in the scores of content and discourse structure between the two classes(t(100)=-0.168,p>0.05;t(100)=-0.369,p>0.05).Students in the two classes are significantly different on the scores of language test(t(100)=2.38,p<0.05),and the average language test score of the experimental class is significantly higher than that of the control class(MD=2.48).Students in the experimental class use 9.05 new linguistic items per person(38 target linguistic items in total),while students in the control class only use 7.5 items.45% of the students in the experimental class use more than 10 linguistic items,while 23% of the students in the control class use more than 10 linguistic items.The following conclusion can be drawn from the results of the study.Application of POA to English writing teaching in senior high school has obvious advantages in improving the quality of “language” in the production of senior high school students,and can help students absorb and master the new target linguistic items they have learned better.Application of POA can promote input learning and productive use of language,indicating that application of POA can assist students to apply what they have learned to practice,as well as solve the problem of“learning-using divide” in teaching.There are four instructional implications of this study.Firstly,before application of POA,it is necessary to “navigate” students in advance,so that students can understand the teaching method and the basis of it,which help students adjust their learning strategies,and adapt to it as soon as possible.Secondly,teacher should try their best to make students understand teaching objectives in the teaching process.At the same time,teacher should always learn about the students’ feedback to the teaching and adjust the teaching according to their feedback.Thirdly,in view of students’ exam-oriented thinking and instrumental motivation,teachers should guide students’ learning objectives and methods.Fourthly,in order to maximize the teaching effect of POA,in addition to considering the connection between“input” and “production”,teachers should also take the needs of students at different levels into account,and keep a balance between the supporting role of teachers and the play of students’ autonomy.