“后方法”教学视角下的大学英语写作教学行动研究

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Research
With the publication of "College English Course Teaching Requirement" in 2007,the Chinese reform of college English teaching commenced. The ultimate objective ofCollege English is to develop students’ ability to use English in a well-rounded way,so that students will be able to communicate effectively in future studies, careers aswell as social interactions. As far as writing is concerned, the teaching requirementsare set at three levels i.e., basic requirements, intermediate requirements, and higherrequirements. By and large, definite teaching requirements for college English writingfrom the perspective of application of language are proposed, adding up to theintensity and complexity of teaching of writing. Under such higher demands, it is stilla common phenomenon where most students can hardly make improvements ofwriting ability.In light of the bumpy progress of promoting the advancement of college Englishwriting teaching, there are many people in China carrying out related research.According to the search for the subject of “college English writing pedagogy”published on the journals collected by CNKI from 2000 to 2014, the data show thatthe number of research on L2 writing has been increased up to more than twentytimes, while papers published on CSSCI have only increased more than twofold. Plus,the rising rate of research took to decline from 2010, which suggests the it is harderand harder to find innovative research direction. In spite of three main directions ofresearch, namely second language acquisition, the discourse analysis,computer-assisted instruction, various research perspectives have been brought intobeing, such as theories of linguistics, psychology or economic groundings.
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1.2 Statement of Purpose
The thesis presents a class-oriented action research, which lasts for 15 months.For the first semester, the main task is to improve students’passion for writing, abilityto construct passage. For the second semester and extra three months in the thirdsemester, the new task is to improve student’s lexical and syntactic complexity,avoiding the negative transfer of Chinese. The author tries to adopt multiple teachingstrategies to achieve the assignments, as well as promoting the professionaldevelopment. In addition, the researcher attempts to find a doable clue for thecurriculum reform of college English writing.From the practical perspective, first and foremost, teachers, as the investigators,can accelerate professional development and ameliorate course quality. With anoverview of the overseas studies, the significance of action research has beenconducted in general teacher education research, and an increasing number of studieson action research in English language teaching can be found. Action research fills thegap between theoretical study and practical study, applying the theories in accordanceto the real problems and reflecting the evolution of theories through practice.Aside from above, this research offers a consultative designing of collegeEnglish writing class for other studies. Though this research presents the cyclicprocess of one certain writing classroom, it can demonstrate some common confusionin most writing classes.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Rationale for Action Research
Action research is part of a broad movement that has been going on in educationgenerally from 1970s. It is related to the ideas of “reflective practice” and “the teacheras researcher”. AR involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approachto exploring your own teaching contexts. That means teachers, as researchers, oughtto take a questioning and “problematising” stance towards teaching.To put it in simple words, action research (AR hereafter) contains teachersadopting pilot measures in order to solve the problems in real teaching practices or toconduct some reform to shake off dissatisfactory teaching situations. A refined andparticular definition of AR has never been finally reached in second languageacquisition research realm. Here are some definitions compiled by action researchwriters:With the kernel concept “action”, what AR really means is to act with specificpurposes, rations, supervision and reflection (Wen，，2011). L2 teachers usually areboth the conductor and part of the subjects in an action research. It is authenticity thatdistinctively features AR, and requires that AR is going on in the natural classesexcluding any counterfeit interference. What’s more, the plan cannot be completedonce and for all. Action plans have to be revised after reflection of each cycle ofactions. Distinguished from other kinds of research in concern of practicality, theresults of AR can be immediately put into teaching practice and new emerging datacan contribute to further development of related theories. In a word, the five maincharacteristics of AR are currency, participation, authenticity, reflection andpracticality.
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2.2 Overview of the Development of Postmethod Pedagogy
B. Kumaravadivelu (2006) summarizes the major trends in TESOL methods forthe past 15 years and predicts the developing direction: from communicative languageteaching (CLT) to task-based language teaching (TBLT), from method-basedpedagogy to post-method pedagogy, and from systemic discovery to critical discourse.CLT was a principled response to the perceived failure of the audio-lingual method,which was seen to focus exclusively and excessively on the manipulation of thelinguistic structures of the target language.During the transitional period, many classroom studies show that teachers couldnot be successful in putting method into practice in real classroom situation. Moreprecisely, the result decided that teachers are not exactly following the rules andprinciples they claimed. The truth is that those who claim to follow different methodsoften follow the same classroom procedures. The kinds of activities that teachers usein the classroom are not based on any method (Kumaravadivelu, 2003).
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Chapter Three: Theoretical Foundation....21
3.1 Writing Strategies Involved in the Postmethod Pedagogy.... 21
3.2 Three-stage Teaching Model of English Writing (TTMEW)..... 27
Chapter Four: Research Design and Methodology...... 31
4.1 Overview of the Research....31
4.2 Participants.......34
4.3 Research Design and Methodology of CycleⅠ..... 35
4.4 Research Design and Methodology of Cycle Ⅱ.... 41
4.5 Summary of This Chapter....48
Chapter Five: Results and Discussion........49
5.1 Results of Cycle One.......49
5.2 Results of Cycle Two...... 54
5.3 Results of Survey and Teaching Reflection.......62
5.3.1 Results of the Survey and Observation........62
5.3.2 Reflection and Resolutions......63
5.4 Summary of This Chapter....64

Chapter Five Results and Discussion

This chapter describes and analyzes the quantitative and qualitative datacollected in the writing examinations, TEM4 writing tests, English writing strategiessurvey, and the interview to see if the three-stage teaching model of English writingcan promote students’ English writing ability. SPSS 17.0 has been adopted in thisresearch to process all the quantitative data and the quantitative results can helpjustify and substantiate the qualitative analysis. In the end, the research findings aresummarized.The ultimate purpose for this action research is to form a macrostrategicframework from the classroom experience or experimentation that includes a solidbody of careful consideration of the plan and the judicious processing of the data(Kumaravadivelu, 2002: p.40). Thus from the qualitative and quantitative analysis, wecan construct a pedagogic framework and some principles for college English writing.

Conclusion

This chapter serves as the conclusion of the thesis, which summarizes the majorfindings and proposes the pedagogical implications for teaching college Englishwriting. Besides, the limitations of the present research and the recommendations forfurther research are suggested.The ultimate purpose for this action research is to form a macrostrategicframework from the classroom experience or experimentation, which includes a solidbody of careful consideration of the plan and the judicious processing of the data(Kumaravadivelu, 2002: p.40). After two-semester action research, which starts fromthe theoretical, empirical, and experiential knowledge, major findings can besummarized as follows:Seen from the quantitative study, the action research justifies the fact thatcommunicative versatile teaching strategies can facilitate the students’learning effectsof learning (Banda, 2009). Based on the post-method theory, to set off designing aclass can never stop until the reflection after the class. Macrostrategy deems that rulesto refine and describe the teaching strategy are not to control or restrict the possibilityof methods but to create more students-based and class-based methods.
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References (omitted)