英语毕业论文范文.doc

广西师范学院2008届本科毕业论文(设计)
Reading-to-writing: an Effective Approach to Improving Students’ EFL Writing Ability in Senior High Schools
English Major LI Ze-feng

Abstract: EFL (English as a foreign language) writing is one of the four basic skills of English learning. However, EFL writing, as a highly complex productive activity, has always been a big problem to students in senior high schools. Most of the students may feel perplexed when confronting EFL writing and always get half the result with twice the effort. Luckily, reading-to-writing approach can effectively enlarge the students’ amount of vocabulary, promote their ability in using words and arranging sentences, enrich their writing materials, obtain writing skills and cultivate their sense of English language and composition structures. This thesis, through an analysis of the present situation of English writing in senior high schools and expositions of the nature of and the relationship between reading and writing, aims to prove the necessity and feasibility of reading-to-writing approach and put forward reading-to-writing approach in EFL writing practice. Adopting reading-to-writing approach in our EFL writing practice persistently, we will improve our EFL writing ability effectively.
Key Words: EFL reading and writing; reading-to-writing; writing ability; effective approach
“以读促写” 提高高中生英语写作能力的有效途径
英语专业 黎泽峰

[摘 要] 英语写作是英语学习的四个基本技能之一。然而，英语写作一直是捆扰我国高中生的一大难题。英语写作作为一个高度复杂的产出性活动，许多学生在面对英语写作时往往不知从何下手，在英语写作方面的努力往往也是事倍功半。以读促写法能有效地拓展词汇量、丰富写作素材、习得写作技巧、提高遣词造句的能力以及培养语感和篇章结构意识。因此，本文通过分析目前高中英语写作的现状和阐述阅读与写作的本质以及阅读与写作的关系，说明了以读促写的必要性和可行性以及如何在英语写作实践中运用以读促写的方法。掌握以读促写的方法并持之以恒地将这种方法运用到英语写作实践当中去，我们便能够有效地提高英语写作能力。
[关键词] 英语阅读；英语写作；以读促写；写作能力；有效途径

1 Introduction
Nowadays, communication between different nations and cultures increases dramatically. English, as an international language, is becoming more and more important and is used more and more widely in our daily life. As Liu Ye (刘烨，2006) concludes that English as a foreign language has become a sure access to information of all sorts and an indispensable means of international communication. As a result, English learning fever sweeps through China in those years. Particularly, students in senior high schools are trying every effort to improve their English competence because they know that English is not only a compulsory course in University Entrance Examination but also a tool in future career.
At present, not a few senior high schools have adopted SEFC (Senior English for China) textbook as the teaching material. According to the New English Curriculum Standards for senior high schools, listening, speaking, reading and writing are four basic skills and requirements for the students. Reading and writing are the most important skills for students in senior high schools. Just as Xiong Jie (熊杰，2005) points out that both reading and writing are powerful and highly individual tools for thinking, learning and discovering and both perform the function of communication. Liu Ye (刘烨，2006) also says: “with the shift from the ability of manipulating the linguistic structure to the ability of using the language to communicate in written/spoken forms in English, EFL writing was considered as a tool for people to communicate in a real situation.” That is to say, EFL writing is vital to our individual development. As a matter of fact, EFL (English as a foreign language) writing has been applied more and more in our English study and future career. For instance, we need to write compositions in exams, to communicate or exchange information with our friends whose native language is English, to write applications for work or study abroad, etc..
However, we probably find that our EFL writing ability is not so encouraging and satisfactory though we have learned English for several years in primary and middle schools. Many of us still do a very poor job in applying English to express our ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. in EFL writing. Some may even not able to produce a single correct sentence in EFL writing. We may share a same feeling that we actually have something to write and want to write, but we just cannot express it correctly and appropriately in English. Yet, most of us tend to treat reading and writing separately and unaware to combine writing with reading to improve our EFL writing ability. In fact, we read a lot of English materials in our English learning and do a nice job in reading comprehension.
To change the poor performance in EFL writing and improve our writing ability, we are highly recommended to integrate writing with reading. Reading-to-writing approach advocates applying what we have learned in the reading materials to write. It can effectively enlarge the amount of vocabulary in the process of reading, provide us ideas and background knowledge for writing, improve our reading speed and quality, broaden our mind and show us how to use words, how to arrange sentences, how to organize compositions and how to achieve coherence and unity in EFL writing. Appling reading-to-writing approach appropriately, we will find that the EFL writing in our examinations is no more than a piece of cake. In this way, we can improve our EFL writing ability effectively and efficiently.
2 The present situation of English writing in senior high schools
In the first place, most of us lack of sufficient EFL writing practice. In English learning, we have realized the importance of reading and paid much attention to improve our English reading comprehension ability, but we usually tend to ignore the training of English writing. Different from English reading, English writing, as a highly complex productive activity, is an activity that requires much more time and energy. So, we usually don’t feel like to write unless we are assigned to do so. Moreover, owing to the limitation of time and heavy learning tasks, a good many of us spare little time on English writing and develop no interest in EFL writing. Thus, it’s hard for us to form a habit of writing in our English learning. Consequently, we usually feel perplexed and confused when confronting EFL writing and do very poor jobs in our English writing. That’s why we are always afraid of EFL writing and get frustration in English writing. What’s worse, we are afraid of EFL writing due to insufficient practice and we don’t like to practice English writing for our fear of EFL writing. This is a vicious circle.
The other situation is that we learn and acquire few writing skills in our classroom English learning. Our teachers seldom teach us writing skills in EFL writing teaching; they usually assign a writing task for us to write after class without any guidance. After class, we often spend hours on it and at last hand in a piece of writing that discouraging both ourselves and the teachers. Besides, our teachers usually give few comments and guidance about writing skills while evaluating our works so that we get little form our EFL writing practices. Without sound English writing skills, it’s difficult or even impossible for us to write a good English composition.
Moreover, we expose to a great amount of English reading materials in our daily English learning. We have at least five English classes every week; besides, we also do a lot of reading exercises and English tests in our English learning. It’s estimated that we may input 300 English words everyday on average.
The last not least, we do not know how to apply the information and language knowledge learned from English reading materials to improve our writing ability though we read a lot. If we don’t apply what we have obtained from the reading materials, we are actually wasting a nice way to improve our EFL writing ability.
Now it’s obviously that we are not only afraid of EFL writing but also don’t know how to write and how to apply what we have obtained from the reading materials to improve our EFL writing ability while we do a lot of English reading. Thus, we usually perform very poor in EFL writing. In a word, the situation of English writing in senior high schools is not so pleasant and satisfactory. However, nowadays, more and more emphasis has been laid on our productive activities. According to the New English Curriculum Standards, senior high schools students are supposed to be able to write a short English composition about 100 words in twenty five minutes to express their ideas clearly without making serious grammatical mistakes. Therefore, an effective approach is urgently required to change our unsatisfactory performance in EFL writing and improve our EFL writing ability.
3 The nature of reading and writing
To illustrate the effectiveness of reading-to-writing approach, we should firstly make clear about what reading is and what writing is. This section attempts to illustrate the nature of reading and writing.
3.1 The nature of reading
We receive a lot of information in our daily life and study; reading is the most usual and effective way to get it. We read all kinds of reading materials, for instance, newspapers, books, journals or magazines, etc. to get information. But we may never think of the nature of reading. It is necessary for us to make clear about the nature of reading, because “if the students fail to understand the nature of reading, they will adopt inappropriate and ineffective reading strategies (王蔷，2000: 111)”.
According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (The fourth edition), the term “reading” can mean: “the activity or skill of understanding written words”, “books and other things that you can read” or “your way of understanding a particular statement, situation, event, etc.” (Randolph Quirk, 2003:1363).
While reading, we not only process the information and store the information in our “database”, but also interpret the reading materials based on our prior knowledge and form our opinions about the reading materials. In reading, we attempt to reconstruct what the writer means as well as to use our own knowledge and experiences to sense and to understand what the reading materials present.
From the above, it’s clear that reading is a process of getting and internalizing information as well as “a cognitive task of interpreting the visual information, relating the received information with the reader’s own general knowledge, and reconstructing the meaning that the writer had meant to convey (王蔷，2000: 115)”.
3. 2 The nature of writing
“On a day to day basis, we write many things, we write for various reasons, and we write in various ways (王蔷，2000: 136),” but few of us have ever thought of what writing really is. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (Extended fourth edition), the term “writing” can mean: “activity or occupation of writing (esp. books)”, “written or printed words”, “style of written material” and “way in which a person forms letters when writing; handwriting” ( AS Hornby, 2002:1763).
In fact, different people have different opinions about writing. Some regard writing as a matter of putting words in written form; some think that writing is the occupation of creating a text for publication; while some others believe that writing is printed letters for communication; still others conclude that writing is letters or symbols written or imprinted on a surface to represent the sounds or words of a language, etc.. Xiao Fushou (肖福寿，2007: 41) offers us a tentative working definition of writing:
Writing is the art of putting words together to form sentences and/or paragraphs in an active, creative, and recursive process of communication in which the writer uses a conventional graphic system to convey a context-based message to a reader in a grammatical and rhetorical manner.
This is a nice and comparatively comprehensive definition of writing. From the definition we can see that: first, the purpose of writing is for communication; second, writing is an art of putting words together; third, writing is an active and creative activity; fourth, the writing is written for readers; fifth, the writing must be grammatically correct and comprehensible to the readers.
As mention above, we can conclude that the nature of writing is that writing is a piece of printed words created by a writer to the readers for effective communication.
4 The relationship between reading and writing
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are closely related and interacted language skills. Judith Oster (1984: ⅸ) puts forward that good reading is an important step towards good writing. Here he has implied the strong relationship between reading and writing. Knowing the relationship between reading and writing, we will easily grasp reading-to-writing approach.
4.1 The difference between reading and writing
Reading and writing are different in nature. We often get an idea that reading and writing are two different language skills because reading is a receptive activity while writing is a productive activity. Chen Liping (陈立平，2001) also thinks that reading and writing are two comparatively independent skills. While reading, we only focus on understanding the printed words written by writers. On the contrary, we must put our ideas into printed words in writing. Reading is actually a process of input, from which the readers obtain and internalize language knowledge. Writing is a process of output, in which the writers present their ideas, thought, and understanding by the language knowledge that they had learned or acquired. In summary, reading is receptive activity- a process of input while writing is productive activity- a process of output.
4.2 The mutual promotion and coexistence of reading and writing
Writing and reading are closely related activities. Xie Weina (谢薇娜，1994) concludes: “writing is an act that imitates reading act because writers imitate the process readers do in writing; reading imitates writing act because readers have to figure out the intention of a writer in reading”. From her conclusion, we can see that reading and writing are strongly related.
As a matter of fact, the close relationship between reading and writing and the positive effect of reading to writing have long been recognized. It can be testified by Chinese proverbs “he who reads tremendously owns a gifted pen” and “one will become a poet if he/she has read three hundred Tang poems thoroughly”. Reading has been regarded as an effective way to improve language learning for a long time. Cai Mingde (蔡明得，2003) says that reading is the basis and presupposition of writing. It’s hard or even impossible for us to produce a piece of idiomatic, unity, concise, coherent and content-rich English composition unless we have read a lot of English materials and internalized sound English language knowledge, writing skills, composition structures, etc.. In fact, reading serves as a period of collection and accumulation. In this period, the writers must first read a great deal of English mat