The fifth chapter will draw a conclusion and give some suggestion in English writing teaching according to the experiments

Chapter Two Literature Review

2。1 Previous Researches of Writing Instruction

2。1。1 The nature of writing 

     Writing plays an important role in our life。 We read books written by others and record some thought by our own writing。 Comparing with listening, speaking and reading, writing is also the one which can best demonstrate people’s level of language。 However, writing is clearly a complex process。 Some people even find it difficult to write a passage by using native language。 The writing task by using a foreign language would only be much harder, but students never give up learning it。 Speaking and writing have functions of output in language。 It is acknowledged that the final purpose of language teaching is to communicate by using the target language in the social activities。 So in order to acquire effective communication, people can’t neglect written language。

    There is a definition of writing。 The book written by Gould, Dianne and Smith (1989) points out the definition of writing:

 1) Writing is a creative act because it requires people to interpret or make sense of something。 论文网

 2) Writing is a way of finding out what people’s ideas and intentions really are。 

 3) Writing is a form of social dialogue, a way of talking to someone。

In conclusion, Writing is a tool which can record and express people’s feelings and help to create more thoughts about something。 

2。1。2 The research status of the second writing at aboard and home 

    Students consider writing just as a task or homework, few of them is really interested in writing。 This situation is even worse in L2 learning。 So writing has been a weak part of second language teaching。 L2 writing is a field that has only in the 1970’s become a clearly separate area of focus, merging as a scholar discipline (Raimes, 1991)。 Since then, overseas and domestic scholars have done many researches about second language writing。 

    Archibald& Jeffery (2000) and Matsuda (2003) had made a summary of the current aboard research of L2 writing, which mainly focuses on L2 writing process, L2 writing pedagogy, L2 writing environment and analysis of L2 writing product。 As research continues, some new thoughts in writing instruction have been put forward throughout these years。 Among many EFL writing teaching approaches, there are two prevalent ones: product approach and process approach。 Pincas (1982) thinks that product approach emphasizes on vocabulary, syntax grammar and cohesive devices。 He points that using this approach needs to follow four steps: familiarization; controlled writing; guided writing and free writing。 Students are totally controlled by teachers during the writing procedure。 After realizing the shortcomings of the process approach, product approach was put forward。 “It considered writing as conveying meaning and a complex, recursive, and creative process” (Silva, 1990)。 Silva points out that while the product approach emphasizes on writing tasks that the learner imitates, copies and using supplied models, the process approach focuses on  producing creative work。 This is not to say, the product approach is useless。 It plays an important role in reducing essays’ grammar mistakes。 The process approach also has some disadvantages。 It takes pretty much time to teach student to learn writing。 After all, students need to join more activities like group discussion。 Students may feel confused about definition of general writing patterns and writing purpose because the process approach neglects this aspect。

Domestic research focuses mainly on the following problems: mother tongue thinking in L2 writing, the discourse and language features in L2 composition and L2 writing pedagogy and so on。 For EFL writing teaching in China, scholars also have done many explorations from different angles。 Some from learning condition like the general mistakes in writing。 Some from examination situation like the influence of scoring criterion on writing teaching。