On Improving Students’ English Writing AbilityXXX.doc

毕业论文（设计）On Improving Students English Writing AbilityIn Rural Middle Schools1. IntroductionIn the 21st century, English education has become more and more important in the class of China, especially after China entered the World Trade Organization. In other words, China will play an important role in the international afairs. Undoubtedly, its a challenge for our rural middle school English teaching. Modern society requires more advanced English talents who are good at English listening, speaking, reading and writing. As the fundamental stage of English teaching, the middle school English teaching is becoming more and more important. Writing is one of four basic sections of English. However, English writing has not received enough attention for a long time in rural middle schools. In order to develop students English writing ability, different people choose different methods, such as special English writing training ways, reciting classical compositions and so on. In fact, these methods do not solve problems essentially. “Writing is an activity of which thoughts are expressed in a language. It is a language form of the process of ones thinking and knowing rather than simply printing or recording those of being seen, read and felt in letters down on paper”.(Net. 1) Its the remaking of the world opinion. In order to improve rural middle school students English writing level, the teaching strategy has aroused many scholars attention in recent years. Since process approach was introduced into the teaching field, the status of students and teachers has changed. Furthermore, scholars pay more attention to the research of teaching and learning methods in English speaking and reading rather than in English writing. Viewing a look of this point, the exploitation of process approach should fix our eyes tightly. It is significant for rural middle school students to develop their English writing abilities. On the one hand, in the view of English writing itself, it has several functions. Firstly, during the writing process, it reinforces the grammatical instruction, idioms and vocabulary. Second, writing practices encourage them to take risks in using English. In other words, during the process, they meet with the new English expressions. Third, when they use English to express their own ideas, they develop other skills of English learning. 2. Present situation of writing teaching in rural areas2.1 Teachers part 2.1.1 Ignoring the process of writingIn the traditional writing class, the teacher in rural schools only concerns with the product but ignores the process of writing. At the very beginning of a writing class, the teacher assigns a topic and asks students to write a composition about it. Two hours later, he/she asks students to hand in their compositions. During writing, he/she does not allow students to talk with each other about the set topic. Students can only think and write by themselves. In this way, students often feel puzzled about how to generate good ideas on the set topic. They may think of something unrelated to the topic. And when the time is up, they may write something illogically and hastily in order to avoid the teachers blame. As this goes on, students feel that writing becomes more and more difficult. Gradually, they will be afraid of writing.2.1.2 Giving inappropriate feedbackAfter the writing assignment has been finished, the teacher asks students to hand in their compositions. Then the teacher begins to read their compositions and gives comments. Traditionally, the teacher gives written comments in red ink. He/she may write like this, “Here, the word is not appropriate.” or “You shouldnt write like this.” In this way, it takes a lot of time to correct the students mistakes. However, his/her labor comes to nothing. Because when students get their compositions back, they will see that their compositions are filled with discouraging red comments. Gradually, they will lose heart and confidence. Of course, they will take no interest in writing.2.2 Problems on the part of students2.2.1 Paying little attention to writing While the teacher teaches the writing course inappropriately, students may learn to write in inappropriate ways, too. The most serious problem is that students may pay little or no attention to the writing. They may think that writing skills have nothing to do with their future work. They do not think they need to master writing skills. So when they have writing classes, they will not treat it seriously. As a result, their compositions are composed of poor content, organization and language.2.2.2 Failure to cultivate writing competenceAnother problem is that students do not try to cultivate their writing competence. In their daily life, they take no notice of what is happening around them; they do not try their best to enlarge their scope of knowledge or accumulate wonderful sentences and sentence patterns; they do not try to develop their interest in writing. Therefore, when they write, they have no idea of what to write about or how to write logically and fluently. This will come to the result that they dislike the writing course and consider it a hard burden.While these students give up cultivating their writing competence, some other students practice writing frequently. They may write whatever they want to write. For example, they may keep a diary or a weekly diary; they may write reflections of what they have just read. However, they do not treat the teachers guided writing seriously and keep their free writing as a secret. So what they write has no readers and they do not know their mistakes. They get no one to make suggestions for their writing. In this way, even if they have a lot to write about, they fail to express their ideas in proper English. And they fail to improve their writing skills.3. Factors hindering the improvement of students English Writing ability3.1 On teachers part3.1.1 Insufficient number of qualified English teachersThe quantity of English teachers who reach the standard for educational background is insufficient. according to the latest statistics, there are 90.38% English teachers who have qualification for the post in China currently, 56.84% for the high school（Feng Dexiang & Zhou Xiang, 2006: 35). English teachers in cities middle schools meet the standard for educational background basically. Therefore, there are considerable amount of English teachers do not meet the standard for level of education in rural middle schools. There are even some teachers who do not graduate from a regular college/university among these qualified ones. Thus it can be seen, there are still many English teachers who do not have teaching qualification in our countrys countryside middle schools, which has limited the development of English teaching quality largely in the countryside middle school. English teachers low quality in the countryside middle schools is mainly shown in these aspects:“ (1) partial teachers teaching conception is outdated; they cling to the inherent experience tenaciously and do not take the educational reform. (2) Their own knowledge and ability lag behind, especially these who do not have the teaching qualification. Their English pronunciation,listening, speaking and writing ability are limited, thus they are unable to organize the classroom freely. Teachers ability is so limited that cause students low ability. And there are also some teachers who lack the essential pedagogical skill which is unable to use the pictures, English songs and so on to stimulate students interest. (3)Although today is the information age, many of them are not able to use the multimedia equipment and the Internet to search teaching resources and adopt advanced teaching ideas and the teaching methods.”(Duan Yafang，2008: 67)What result is the insufficient number of qualified English teachers? Because of the income gap and the differences in living conditions, excellent teachers drain is pretty severe in rural areas, which leads to grievous shortage of teachers in these areas. Due to heavy tasks of teaching,poor living and working condition in rural areas, some of them abandon teacher ship to pursue commerce; some take part in government job; some crush into the city from rural areas; some move forward to the coast from the mainland; some engage in the secondary occupation to fish the extra income; some who are unable to change the present situation temporarily are physically in the “Cao camp”, but their mind is in the “Han camp”. Therefore they take a passive attitude toward their job. All these problems mentioned above have a negative effect on the improving of writing and the improvement of students writing ability, so government and society should improve rural English teachers income and living condition urgently.3.1.2 Improper teaching methodsThe teacher is the guilder of the writing class. What the teacher does affects students greatly. As the Chinese saying goes, interest is the best guide. The ways in which the teacher teaches writing is directly related to whether the students interest can be evoked. If the teacher often thinks of fresh ways to lead students in writing classes and of different topics that students are interested in. He/she makes a fundamental basis for arousing students motivation.The teacher focuses on the product or the process of writing matter much, which relates to the students attitude toward writing classes. If the teacher only puts focus on the product, he/she will not give detailed explanation of the set topic to students. He/she will not spend much time in expanding the students line of thought. On the contrary, he/she will spend a lot of time correcting students compositions that may be written carelessly by students. In this way, the students writing skills will definitely not be improved. But if the teacher puts focus on the process of writing, he/she will pay much attention to every phase of the writing. At the first stage, he/she will try his/her best to expand the students line of thought. At the last stage, he/she will try to make the evaluation more useful and effective. And gradually, the students writing skills can be improved.3.1.3 Simple feedback for studentsThe ways in which the teacher provides feedback can also have effect on improvement of students writing skills. If the teacher only gives written comments in red ink to students and never explains, he/she makes nothing. For students may not take notice of the comments. But if the teacher gives feedback in different ways, for example, oral feedback, peer feedback, etc, the result will be different. In these ways, students will look back to their own compositions and learn something useful from their classmates compositions. Not only will the feedback be more effective, but also the students writing skills will be improved greatly.The teachers attitude toward teaching affects the improvement of the students writing ability a lot. When students see that the teacher cares and is concerned with reaction and responding to their writing, they will make earnest efforts to improve their writing. Otherwise, students will not treat the writing course seriously, even if they know this will do harm to their own study.3.2 The factors on the part of students themselvesThe influence of the teacher is just the external cause of students writing ability. It just promotes or hinders the improvement of students writing ability. The only internal cause is students themselves who decide the improvement of the writing ability. Students attitude and motivation affect writing.3.2.1 Wrong attitude towards writing Writing is a creative task that needs skills and tactics. Students do their writing tasks passively but rather than positively and actively. They write blindly because they lack self-awareness. Middle school students generally have a low level of motivation and little interest in writing. Because writing seems difficult and threatening, for most of them, the only motivation for composition is to pass exams or to fulfill the tasks assigned by their teachers. The most serious problem with middle school students is that most of them fail to have a good command of English writing.3.2.2 Little input and outputIn rural middle schools, students reading material is rare, (for example, students in urban can buy English newspapers, English magines, Enghlish novels and so on conveniently, but for students in countryside, it is a little difficult.) Students in countryside often get vocabulary, grammar, English culture background and history, special sentences structure from textbooks. Although the English textbook is enated by Educational Authority, its resources are limited. It could not provide students all they need. Only when students read English materials extensively, can they have enough language material to write.How students practice writing can also affect the improvement of the students writing ability. However, students spend little time on practising writng. Most of them do not practise writing except for the guided writing. Even though their input is large enough, but if students only finish what the teacher assigns them to do, their thoughts will be always limited. Some of them may have a good habit of keeping a diary or a weekly diary, but they keep their diary as a secret. They do not know their mistakes. If students only write what they want to, they will not improve their writing skills, either. Because even though this kind of writing helps expand their line of thought, they may not be able to write and express their ideas in proper English. Therefore, their practice is in vain at last. If students can connect the teachers guided writing and their own free writing together, they can improve their writing skills quickly. 4. Countermeasures4.1 Countermeasures on the part of teachers4.1.1 Creating better condition for rural English teachers Education authorities should be responsible to solve the problem of insufficient number of qualified English teachers. The first kind of training is the training of professional knowledge and teaching skills. The second kind is for professional spirits. On the one hand , in order to improve English teachers knowledge and teaching methods, we should organize the regional universities and other adult education organization to train foreign language teacher; On the other hand, it is necessary to control the quality of adult education strictly, which can improve the English teachers knowledge level and basic teaching skills truly.English teachers should keep making progress. They not only improve educational background and study the New Curriculum standard and advanced foreign language education theory, but also update educational conception. English teachers may organize the collective to prepare a lesson, engage in classroom teaching research, high-quality courses competitions, and organize other activities to learn from each other and seek common progress; teachers also must continue to improve their ability of voice, tone, speaking ,listening and modern language teaching skills.Education authorities may organize urban and rural schools English teachers for two-way exchanges: secondary school English teachers in rural areas could feel and gain the advanced ideas of education and teaching methods from the urban schools. Teachers from the cities can also to bring the advanced ideas of education and teaching methods to the rural schools. English teachers in rural schools should have the right outlook and values on life and the spirit of devoting to educational career, instead of pursuiting material interests excessively. It is necessary for them to attach importance to educational career. Certainly, the society, the government and even the parents should joint effort to create harmonious working conditions as soon as possible for the countryside middle school English teachers, improve their material treatment as well as the social status. The country must dispose the compulsory education resources reasonablely and put the investment funds to the countryside. Guide and encourage the university graduates to engage in the compulsory education work, especially to the countryside. It is possible to stabilize and the strengthen teacher troop, and eliminate these unqualified teachers who are stubborn and do not strive for progress.4.1.2 Applying the process approachTo improve students writing ability, the teacher should put his/her focus on the process as well as on the product of writing. Current research in composing shows that writing is an extremely complex intellectual-linguistic process. This process involves recursive application of a wide range of thinking skills and language abilities. According to Survey there are three stages: rehearsing, drafting and revising. “Rehearsing or pre-writing involves finding a topic, finding ideas about the topic, thinking about the topic, letting ideas interact, develop and organize themselves, thinking about the audience and the purpose of the writing task.”(C. Richards, 2002：108-109) At this stage, the teacher should first choose a good model text and then give detailed explanation and point out the good and weak points of it. After he/she assigns the topic related to the model text to the students, he/she should undertake the burden to expand students line of thought. “The process approach to writing does not only pay attention to what students do while they are writing, it also attches great importance to what the students (and the teacher) do before they start writing and after they finish writing.” (Wang Qiang, 2000: 142)The most effective way is brainstorming. Brainstorming is an activity in which two or more students get together to discuss a given essay topic at the prewriting stage. “The first step