An Action Research On Improving Senior High School Students’ Performance In English Continuation Writing By Thinking Visualization Training

With the promulgation and implementation of the new curriculum standards,the reform of the College Entrance Examination has been carried out in various provinces and cities.Some provinces have introduced a new type of writing---continuation writing---to the English test papers of the College Entrance Examination.It includes both reading and writing,and comprehensively tests students’ abilities to use language and think logically.However,at present,the teaching of English continuation writing in senior high schools is still in its initial stage.Students are not good at using English.Their pieces of continuation writing are poorly organized with the ideas expressed unclearly,inaccurately and inappropriately.Therefore,it is urgent to find effective and feasible teaching methods to improve students’ performance in English continuation writing.In recent years,the theory of "thinking visualization" has opened a new chapter in teaching and learning.It has been widely used in the teaching of reading,writing and vocabulary,but rarely used in the teaching of English continuation writing.Based on the schema theory,dual coding theory and knowledge visualization theory,this study hypothesized that thinking visualization training can improve senior high school students’ performance in English continuation writing.To test this hypothesis,this study attempted to answer the following questions:1)What are the effects of thinking visualization training on students’ performance in English continuation writing ?2)What are the effects of thinking visualization training on the content,organization and language use of students’ English continuation writing ?3)What are the changes of students’ attitudes towards English continuation writing after thinking visualization training ?This action research took 55 students from Class Six,Senior One of Anqing No.1Middle School as the research subjects and lasted for 17 weeks.A pretest and a questionnaire were conducted to identify the problems existing in the students’ English continuation writing.To solve these problems,the researcher carried out three rounds of action research.In view of the deficiencies existing in each round of the action research,some corresponding measures were taken to adjust and improve the teaching design.The steps in each round of the action research were planning,implementation,observation and reflection.Writing tests,questionnaires and interviews were used as research instruments,and SPSS 26.0 software was used to analyze the collected data.The results of the research indicated:(1)thinking visualization training can improve students’ performance in English continuation writing;(2)thinking visualization training can enrich writing content,improve the coherence of writing,and increase syntactic richness,lexical accuracy and diversity in English continuation writing;(3)thinking visualization training can enhance students’ self-confidence and make them have a positive attitude towards English continuation writing.This action study has some implications for the teaching of English continuation writing in senior high schools,but it also has some shortcomings and limitations,which need to be overcome in future research.