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1、On the Improvement of Middle School Students Writing Ability AbstractThe thesis focuses on the improvement of Middle School Students writing ability by using Krashens Input Hypothesis theories. Writing is an extremely complex process, which is very important but difficult for students. Cognitive the
2、ory holds that listening, speaking, reading and writing keep in touch with each other. Writing training as an effective method could help improve students ability to use English. Finishing a composition is difficult for students, which was great influenced by the Chinese thinking style. To solve tho
3、se problems, on the one hand, teachers should learn to use the task-based language teaching method in writing teaching class to help students finish writing task effectively and smoothly. On the other hand, students themselves should read English extensively and form their English thinking style whi
4、le writing an English composition.Key words English writing, the Input Hypothesis theories, the Task-based Language Teaching Method, English thinking style.一. IntroductionFrancis Bacon, in his essay of studies says that reading market a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man .Wal
5、ter Jong, an American scholar, also points out writing changes the ideas of human beings. Many Chinese students learn English and have to learn how to write in English and how to express their ideas. Most important of all, you could get a high score if you are able to write a good composition in the
6、 college Entrance Examination. So writing is one of the criteria to judge your English proficiency. Writing can reflect the students application ability and writing is one of the most difficult language skills to improve. We read and learn English every day, but we cant express our idea clearly and
7、correctly in written English.Thus, the problem of writing for middle school students always haunts English teachers in China .When proofing or correcting the students exam paper or exercise books, teachers find that the majority of students cant express their ideas clearly and correctly and then can
8、t get satisfying marks on writing exercises and exam papers. In English classes, we often hear complaints among students that teachers always ask them to write a composition. “No matter how hard I try, it doesnt work. Most of students seem to have no interest in English writing and arent willing to
9、write English compositions, some students often copy others at random in order to finish the writing exercises. So, there exist some problems about English writing during the English learning, which arouses the teachers attention to help and enhance the students writing ability. So my purpose of thi
10、s study is to investigate these problems and its effects on students, hoping to help teachers and students find ways to solve the problems. Three research questions are raised for this purpose:1. the difficulties for students to write a composition2.analysis on the reasons of making mistakes when wr
11、iting3. ways to deal with these difficulties4. What teaching methods may teachers use in the daily writing teaching二. Literature ReviewStephen D. Krashens Input Hypothesis theory has undergone several stages of development. In the late 1970s, he put forward the basic idea of his Monitor Model for th
12、e first time, then after some revision, the Monitor Model became a complete theory. Later, he formulated five “hypotheses”: Acquisition-learning, Monitor, Natural Order, Input, and Affective Filter. The Input Hypothesis has become the central part of Krashens theory. In the Input Hypothesis, Krashen
13、 makes the following claims: “The learner acquires language by comprehending linguistic input that is slightly beyond his or her level of competence (i+1), and a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to move from to stage i+1 is that the acquirer understanding input that contains i+1” (Krashen, 1
14、982:21)According to Krashen, the Input Hypothesis explains how L2 acquisition occurs.The input hypothesis simply states: humans acquire language in only one way-by understanding messages or by receiving “comprehensible input” (Krashen, 1985). It states that one acquires language in only one way-by e
15、xposure to comprehensible input. This hypothesis also states simply that we acquire (not learn) language by understanding input that is a little beyond our current level of acquired competence (what Krashen calls “i+1”), then both comprehension and acquisition will occur. The input hypothesis claims
16、 that we use meaning to help us acquire language. To state the hypothesis a bit more formally, an acquirer can “move” from a stage i (where i is the acquirers present level of competence) to a stage i+1 (where i+1 is the stage immediately following i along some natural order) by understanding langua
17、ge containing i+1, but he didnt mention how to increase input.So the author simply tries to apply Input Hypothesis into the improvement of the students writing ability from the point of reading and reciting. At the same time, the procedure of writing could probably apply the Task-based Language Teac
18、hing Method rather than mentioned researchers method.三. Research Procedure1 Participants(1)Students: 98 students with ages from 16 to 17 who are in senior one grade participated the questionnaires about English writing.(2) Teachers: Five teachers participated the interview. All the teachers have bee
19、n teaching English for a number of years, within the range of teaching experience from 3 to10 years. 2 Procedures(1 )The questionnaire of 8 questions which were all in Chinese was handed out to students in their spare time. Students were told to mark a tick in each cell .Time to complete the questio
20、nnaire was limited to 3 minutes.(2) Interview First, 20 students were interviewed to ask questions: “Are you afraid of English writing? Or are you interested in English writing? What affect your writing? Is it vocabulary, grammar, discourse coherence, or Chinglish expression?” .Then, five teachers t
21、alked about their daily writing teachings problem, such as “how do you teach your students to write? How do you correct your students paper? Do you have any plan to teach your students writing?”(3) Composition mainly comes from 50 examination papers done on the April 14 and daily written exercises.
22、The researcher selected and picked out the errors to analyze and explain the reason why students made mistakes.(4 )Data collection The questionnaires answers were made an Appendix and data were counted into percentage. The interviewed questions and questionnaire were translated into English from Chi
23、nese. Students compositions were checked carefully. In order to make the errors identified and more objective and scienticific, the researcher invited two professional English teachers to check the compositions carefully and identified the errors .Each composition was checked 3 times and marked the
24、agreed errors and the type of errors.3 Result From the questionnaires, we can see that the typical problem in English writing is that some students would think in Chinese first then translate into English , called “Chinglish expression” . From the interview by the students, we know that Chinglish ex
25、pression is the major factors affecting writing. From the interview by the teachers, we clearly see that the difficult problem of carrying out writing teaching is that some teachers still have no idea or ways to teach students to write. From the composition written by students, we can find out some
26、basic grammar errors, and they are: 1) errors in subject-predicate agreement; e.g.: Someone have left you a message in the office. Two fifths of the land here are covered with trees and grass.2) errors in the passive voice; e.g.: The accident was happened last week. 3) Misuse of articles; e.g.: I ha
27、ve never seen such a animal.4) misuse of singular form and plural form of nouns; e.g.: Five child is playing on the ground.5) errors in tense; e.g.: I buy a book yesterday.6) errors in comparative degree and superlative degree; e.g.: He is more cleverer than his brother.7) misuse of conjunctions; e.
28、g.: I saw two men sitting behind and whisper there.8) errors in the infinitives; I want speak to Tom.9) Errors ing form of the verbs; e.g.: Would you mind to turning down your radio a little, please? 10) Lexical errors; e.g.: Everyone wants to experience a high education. When we look at our teacher
29、s, we should respect them. 11) Run-on sentences; e.g.: In the elementary school, I have several dreams, I often make a dream. You should try to have a dream, you neednt feel shy. 12) Chinglish expression.四. Discussion1.Difficulties for Students to Write a Good CompositionWriting is considered as pro
30、ductive skill. Writing involves the production of language on the language user. Writers have to deal with the eight basic elements in writing, that is syntax( sentence structure, boundaries, stylistic choices), grammar ( rules for Verbs, Agreement, Articles, Pronouns, etc), organization ( paragraph
31、s, topic and support ), word choice ( vocabulary , idiom), purpose(the reason for writing), the writers process (getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts, revising ), and content (relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc). For middle school students, the most difficult one when writing is C
32、hinglish Expression. From questionnaire 6 we can see Chinglish expression that is directly influenced by Chinese. Besides, the result of the interview also proves that Chinglish expression is the most difficult problems for students. The major causes of Chinglish expressions are the different thinki
33、ng modes in English and Chinese. Since ones thinking mode is deeply rooted in his mind, it is very difficult for an EFL learner to change it. Deng Yanchang (1989) once pointed out that the lower a students proficiency was when learning a foreign language; the more unidiomatic sentences there were in
34、 his writing or speech .He explained the reasons for this as “until one has a good command of a foreign language, ones writing is bound to be affected by ones native language .Until one can think in English, ones ideas will often be expressed in word for word renderings of Chinese into English. For
35、example: 1) everybody in the world hopes that they can be happy, I am so. 2) Nobody hopes to make a friend with a not having manners man. “I am also” is a sentence of typical Chinglish expression. The subject says that he wants to express the Chinese meaning “我也是” ,but he does not know that in Engli
36、sh there is a particular structure to express this meaning and thinks that the expression “I am also” is right as far as English grammar is concerned .They are reproduced here as follows: 3) everybody in the world hopes that they can be happy, so do I. 4) Nobody hopes to make friends with a man with
37、 bad manners .Chinese students always use Chinglish expression to write composition. They are influenced by the mother tongue when they want to express their minds, they might meet some complex or changeable sentence structure but could not express. Many students wrote like this: The book have been
38、sold. There are 14% of the students enjoy reading popular science articles. There are many people can read difficult essays in Chinese but can not write themselves in Chinese. Good good study, day day up. Here is suitable to enjoy cash crops.The second one is language errors, including grammar, word
39、s usage and so on. We can see from the students papers: I have a problem and I am writing ask you advice. This is secret, so please do not tell anyone else, I used to get along very well with my cousin and we used to be a very good friend. We were planning to take part of the winter holidays togethe
40、r. Now I do not think I want to invite you home. The book will suitable the English learners. The book has been translated to many languages. The book published in 1993.It has been translated into tens of languages, spread love to the entire world. In order to learn English well, I should increase t
41、he method of study.2. Analysis on the Reasons of Making Mistakes When WritingAll students make mistakes at various stages of their language learning. It is part of the natural process they are going through and occurs for a number of reasons. Interference from the students owning language is not the
42、 only reason for making mistakes. There is a category which a number of people call “developmental” errors. These are the result of conscious or subconscious processing which frequently overgeneralises a rule, for example, when a student having learnt to say things like “ I have to go,” then starts
43、saying “ I must to go,” not realizing that the use of “ to” is not permitted with “ must”.Some mistakes are deep-seated and need constant attention. While these are examples of “ errors”, others seem to be more like “slips” made while students are simultaneously processing information and they are t
44、herefore easier to correct quickly. Whatever the reasons for “getting it wrong”, it is vital for the teachers to realize that all students make mistakes as a natural and useful way of learning. By working out when and why things have gone wrong, they learn more about the language they are studying.
45、(Jeremy Harmer, 1999)3.Ways to Deal With These Difficulties(1)Reading and writingWhere there is little reading, there will be little language learning. Reading is a part of the process of language acquisition, and if the reading text is especially interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to b
46、e even more successful.Krashen holds that comprehensible input is vital for language acquisition and reading is an inimitable source of such input. Reading texts also provide good models for English writing, when we teach the skill of writing, we will need to show students models of what we are enco
47、uraging them to do . Furthermore, reading passage also provides opportunities to study language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and texts.There are so many reading passages in our textbooks. When it comes to reading passage, the author would take the
48、 following steps in order to improve the writing ability. First, learning the more advanced vocabularies from the text, mainly verbs, adjectives and adverbials. The author often asks students to recite advanced vocabularies and master their meanings, or the usage. For example, independent = in + dep
49、end + ent; agriculture = agri + culture; immediately = at once / right now / in no time /after a short while; rude = not polite = impolite. Another example, the reading passage Chucks Friend, I would hand out the tables for students to study. meaning Normal words Advanced words寻找 Look for Hunt for喜欢 like Become fond of聪明 clever Bright/ wise/ sm
