An Empirical Study On Iterative Continuation Task Of English Writing In Senior High School

Writing is both an output process and a productive skill,and it serves as a standard for assessing learners’ comprehensive English language ability.It is undeniable that the continuation task in the new National Matriculation Test has further increased the difficulties of writing for senior high school students,resulting in many students being unable to write and being fearful of writing.This study,based on the interactive alignment theory,attempts to explore whether Iterative Continuation Task(ICT)has an influence on students’ writing performance and whether they can promote the three skills of language,content and discourse when compared to the traditional Pre-learning,While-learning and Post-learning(PWP)teaching method.In light of this,the following three research questions were addressed in this study: 1.Compared with the traditional PWP teaching method,how does the ICT improve English writing performance of senior high school students? 2.To what extent does the ICT affect the language,content and discourse of English writing of senior high school students? 3.What is the effect of ICT on the language,content and discourse of English writing of senior high school students at different levels?A mixed research method was used in this study,which included tests and semi-structured interviews.Two parallel classes of 90 students from H Senior High School in Tai’ an,Shandong Province,were selected for this study to verify the above research questions.Class 1 was regarded as the control group and was taught by the traditional PWP teaching method;Class 2 was served as the experimental group and was taught by the ICT teaching method.The experiment lasted 16 weeks and consisted of six writing exercises,two tests and one interview.The data from the pre-test and post-test were entered into SPSS 25.0 software and then analyzed by descriptive statistics,independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test,with the results of the semi-structured interviews as a supplement to the results.The results of the experiment suggested that: 1.Compared with the traditional PWP teaching method,there was a significant improvement on the writing performance of the students after adopting the ICT teaching method.2.The ICT teaching method significantly improved the performance of the students in the three sub-scores of the language,content and discourse and promoted their writing skills.3.The ICT teaching method also had different positive effects on the language,content and discourse of the students at different levels and they all strongly endorsed the ICT approach as well as claimed that it not only stimulated their interest and motivation in writing but also improved their self-confidence.This study is a brave attempt to apply Iterative Continuation Task to the teaching of English writing in senior high school.The results of the experiment provide initial evidence of the facilitative effect of the ICT teaching method and leave implications for the teaching of English writing.