Action Research On Improving English Writing Ability Of High School Students By Reciting And Imitating Writing

English writing is not only a necessary part of high school English teaching,but also the most difficult part.The improvement of English writing ability lies not only in teachers’ teaching,but also in students’ second creation after understanding and absorbing what they have learned.The General High School English Curriculum Standards（2017 edition,revised in 2020）set out the requirements for students’ language skills.However,a survey of senior two students in a high school found that their English writing ability failed to meet the academic level required in the curriculum standard.Therefore,it is important to stimulate students’ interest in writing and improve their English writing ability.Ouyang Xiu once said: “ Although the books are voluminous,the first can add the accumulation of power,why not ?” Recitation has always been a requirement for Chinese teachers to learn from students.Recitation helps students to understand the text content in depth,clarify the text ideas and help students enrich their own cultural knowledge reserves.Writing is the category of using what is known and what is wanted to create.Students can recreate through recitation of materials and their own ideas.There are many ways to improve students ’ writing ability,but recitation is an effective way in recent years.Based on the memetics theory,Krashen’ s Input Hypothesis and Swain’ s Output Hypothesis,this study takes the students of senior two in a high school in Huaibei as the research objects,and conducts an action research for 16 weeks by means of questionnaires,writing tests and interviews.This study mainly answers the following questions:（1）Can recitation model improve students’ writing ability? If yes,in what ways do they improve?（2）Can recitation model stimulate students’ interest in writing?Does writing attitude change?In this study,two questionnaires,three writing tests and two interviews were conducted throughout the study.The subjects were selected from a science class in a demonstration high school,with a total of 47 students.The results show that the students’ post-test scores are higher than the pre-test scores after sixteen weeks of recitation and imitation training,and they have made progress in content,language use and discourse structure.In addition,two interviews with students show that most students believe that the implementation of recitation and imitation is of great help to improve their English level,improve their memory ability and make their English level rise significantly.Recitation and imitation stimulate students’ interest in writing,which makes students feel that English writing learning is no longer inaccessible.This study provides the following suggestions for the future English writing teaching in senior high schools:（1）English teachers should pay attention to recitation parody,understand students’ English level and learning style,and set reasonable recitation parody tasks for them.（2）Teachers should take effective measures to help students reasonably use the knowledge they have mastered to write.Teachers emphasize the significance and expression of recitation materials and strengthen writing training so as to improve English writing.