The Effects Of Process-Genre Approach On English Writing In Junior High School

There still have been many problems in the teaching of English writing in junior high school,such as more emphasis on the product than the process,too much attention on grammar,inadequate language input before writing,the teacher-oriented atmosphere,neglect of students’ writing self-efficacy and so forth.The process-genre approach,a student-centered writing teaching approach that stresses both the writing process and the writing genres,is such a feasible writing teaching approach that can help to deal with those problems.However,the effects of it on junior high school students’ writing have been insufficiently documented.In view of this,the process-genre approach was adopted in the research to explore the following questions: First of all,what effects does the process-genre approach have on students’ English writing performance? Then,what effects does the process-genre approach have on students’ writing accuracy,fluency and syntactic complexity? Finally,what effects does the process-genre approach have on students’ English writing self-efficacy?The experiment was conducted in Fengtai No.4 Junior High School,lasting for 12 weeks.Two classes from the eighth grade participated in the experiment.One was the experimental class with 40 students that were taught by the process-genre approach.The other was the control class with 40 students that were taught by the product approach.The instruments included writing tests,writing assessment standard and questionnaire.After 12-week research,the writing performance of the post-test was analyzed according to the writing assessment standard,including students’ writing scores in the content,organization and language.Besides,according to the index of measuring writing accuracy,the total number of errors per 100 words was figured out.According to the index of measuring writing fluency,the total number of words produced within 25 minutes was calculated.And according to the index of measuring syntactic complexity,the mean length of T-unit was figured out.Finally,according to the questionnaire,students’ writing self-efficacy was analyzed from the aspects of ideation,convention and self-regulation.The conclusions are as follows: First,the writing performance of the students in the experimental class was significantly better than that of the control class in terms of content and language.It was reflected in covering key points in terms of content and the better use of collocation of words and phrases,tenses,noun articles,and the spelling of words in terms of language.But there was no significant difference in the writing performance of the two classes in terms of organization.That means there was no significant difference in paragraphs and discourse structures.Secondly,students’ writing accuracy of the experimental class was significantly better than that of the control class in terms of the total number of errors per hundred words;students’ writing fluency in the experimental class was better than that of the control class in terms of the total number of words produced within 25 minutes;however,no significant difference existed in students’ writing syntactic complexity in terms of the mean length of T units between the two classes.Finally,students’ writing self-efficacy of the experimental class was higher than that of the control class in ideation,which was reflected in putting ideas in writing and thinking of more words to express ideas.While the writing self-efficacy of the students in the experimental class was lower than that of the control class in convention,which was reflected in writing grammatically correct sentences.And there was no apparent difference in students’ writing self-efficacy between the two classes in terms of self-regulation.