Effects Of The Use Of Pre-writing Worksheet On Senior High School Students’ Writing Quality Of Continuation Task

This study was conducted to explore the effects of the use of pre-writing worksheet on senior high school students’ writing quality of English continuation task in terms of organization,content,and language.Its theoretical bases are input hypothesis,schema theory and interaction hypothesis.Its significance lies in three aspects:providing an effective training method for teachers to improve the quality of students’ continuation task,providing strategy for students’ learning of continuation task,and improving their autonomous learning ability.The research questions to be addressed in this study are:（ⅰ）What effect does the use of pre-writing worksheet have on senior high school students’ writing quality of continuation task in terms of organization?（ⅱ）What effect does the use of pre-writing worksheet have on senior high school students’ writing quality of continuation task in terms of content?（ⅲ）What effect does the use of pre-writing worksheet have on senior high school students’ writing quality of continuation task in terms of language?Altogether 92 eleventh graders from a senior high school in Taizhou participated in the experiment.The instrument was writing test.The treatment involved five steps:sorting out the plot by using the story mountain;analyzing the main characters;outlining by making full use of two given first sentences,clues and 5W1H;sublimating the theme;listing language concerning the plot,characters and theme.After all the compositions were collected,they were scored by two teachers according to the rating rubric,including three scoring categories:organization（30 points）,content（30 points）and language（40 points）.Data were analyzed by calculating the total score of compositions and the means of the three categories and by employing independent samples T-tests to compare the writing quality in terms of organization,content and language.After the post-test,six students representing high,medium,and low levels of writing were interviewed about the effects of the use of pre-writing worksheets on students’writing quality.The major findings of this study are as follows:Firstly,the use of pre-writing worksheet has a positive effect on senior high school students’ writing quality in terms of organization.There is a significant difference between EC and CC with T at 4.125 and P at.000.One reason may be the arrangement of the tasks in pre-writing worksheets,such as the tasks in form of story mountain and outlining,which make students focus on the consistence,coherence and cohesion of the story.Another reason may be that pre-writing worksheets guide students to analyze the genre and structure of the reading material from a macro perspective,continuously enriching students’ formal schema.Secondly,the use of pre-writing worksheet has a positive effect on senior high school students’ writing quality in terms of content.There is a significant difference between EC and CC with T at 2.010 and P at.047.Two factors can be attributed to students’ improvement in content.For one thing,the guidance and monitoring of students’ interaction with the reading material is created when students finish the tasks in pre-writing worksheets,which confirms Wang’s（2018）finding that enhanced interaction can lead to the alignment of language comprehension and output.For another thing,the tasks in pre-writing worksheets provide students with strategies for creating the coherent plot,adding detailed description and sublimating the theme.Thirdly,the use of pre-writing worksheet has the least effect on senior high school students’ writing quality in terms of language.There is no significant difference between EC and CC with T at 0.777 and P at.439.This may be due to students’ limited vocabulary and inability to use the listed language flexibly.In addition,it is difficult to improve the language accuracy and variety in such a short period.This study provides pedagogical implications for the teaching of continuation tasks in senior high school.Firstly,teachers should design the tasks in the pre-writing worksheets according to students’ learning difficulties with the aim of raising their awareness of the organization of continuation tasks.Secondly,in the teaching of reading and writing,teachers should guide students to focus on the content and theme of the text,and master the strategies of analyzing the discourse.Thirdly,teachers should help students develop good habits of language learning and adopt various ways to motivate them to expand vocabulary.There are three limitations in this study.Firstly,the experiment is not long enough to ensure the long-term effect of the use of pre-writing worksheet on the writing quality.Secondly,the sample is not big enough to be generalized to the results of other samples.Thirdly,this study only focuses on the genre of narrative,whose findings need to be further verified with regard to other genres.