The Production-oriented Approach to Teaching English Writing in Chinese Junior High Schools

Abstract

With the acceleration of globalization, English communicative competence has become a necessary ability in modern society. The teaching of English writing in junior high schools not only improves students’ comprehensive language ability, but also lays a favorable foundation for their future English learning. Writing classes should highlight the importance of writing. But in fact, students’ actual output is neglected. The writing classes exist in name only. Based on the above questions, this research attempts to apply the Production-Oriented Approach (POA) in junior high school English writing teaching which is proposed by Chinese scholar Wen Qiufang. This research aims to find the effectiveness of POA in English writing teaching of Chinese junior high schools. We adopt the experimental research approaches, using classroom observation, interviews and tests to collect research data. Taking a class of 50 students in Grade 8 of junior high school as the research subjects, the researcher carries out the production-oriented English teaching experiment for one semester. It has been found: (1) Compared with traditional English instructions, POA can improve the English writing quality and comprehensive language using ability of junior high school students. (2) Both teachers and students believe that POA can stimulate students’ positive emotional experience, and students have more opportunities to use language in class. Through “enabling”, the quality of students’ language output has been significantly improved.