A Study On The Effects Of Schema-based Writing Teaching Mode On Practical English Writing Of Senior High School Students

Writing is not only an inseparable part of language competence,but also an important form of language output.With the deepening of the reform of the new college entrance examination,more and more provinces add practical English writing into the writing part.Therefore,the importance of exploring practical English writing teaching is becoming increasingly prominent.Nowadays,schema theory is widely used in English reading and listening teaching,but there are few studies investigating the influence of schema theory on English writing.To probe into the effects of schema-based writing teaching mode on practical English writing of senior high school students,109 students from a four-star senior high school in Nanjing were selected as research subjects.To be more specific,there are 55 students in the experimental class and 54 students in the control class.There was no significant difference in practical English writing proficiency between the two classes before the experiment.This paper designs schema based writing teaching mode for a three-month teaching experiment,and analyzes samples of the experimental class and the control class from different dimensions.In this study,the specific research questions are as follows: 1)What effects do linguistic schema have on lexical richness and syntactic complexity of senior high school students’ practical English writing? 2)What effects do formal schema have on textual coherence of senior high school students’ practical English writing? 3)What effects do content schema have on senior high school students’ overall practical English writing ability?Through the study of the above three issues,conclusions are drawn as below: 1)linguistic schema positively enhances lexical richness by improving lexical variation and lexical sophistication.In terms of lexical variation,the average number of word types and the total number of words both increased significantly.As for lexical sophistication,the frequency of the first most frequent 1000 words decreased and that of the second most frequent 1000 words increased.Linguistic schema increases syntactic complexity by increasing unit length and unit density.In the analysis of unit length,the mean of clause length and T-unit length also increased.In the analysis of unit density,T-unit complexity ratio and dependent clause ratio increased.2)Formal schema is influential in heightening textual coherence to some extent.Textual coherence is reflected in local coherence and global coherence.The result indicates that global coherence is significantly enhanced,but the local coherence is decreased.3)Content schema facilitates students’ overall practical writing competence.After three-month teaching experiment,students in the experimental class made great progress in completing practical English writing tasks.In addition,this study also finds that compared with advanced students,under-performed students gain greater progress,which is related to less content schema stored in their minds.Results of interviews also prove that schema based writing teaching mode is helpful in improving students’ confidence of writing,learning interest and critical thinking ability.Based on the above findings,pedagogical implications of this study are as follows.On the one hand,in the teaching process of practical English writing,teachers are able to appropriately add linguistic schema training to improve lexical richness and syntactic complexity according to students’ level.On the other hand,teachers are supposed to form schema based practical English writing teaching mode gradually,internalizing the training of linguistic schema,formal schema and content schema into class activities.