Once I thought about the teaching of writing, the findings and my thoughts are as follows: Writing in English, in my opinion, is a hard task for students in each grades。 And for me, I took a lot of time on practicing it and do have much reflections in every period of my English learning。 Before I come into the English major of HZNU, I used to remember some difficult words, phrases and sentences patterns on purpose, considering that they can bring high scores, and it really does。 Especially in senior high school, preparing for the college entrance examination。

In this aspect, when we teach the basic skills of writing, the vocabulary is actually the most important thing。 Writing of any language is based on a certain number of words and expressions。 The larger vocabulary, the better writing。 Without words and expressions, no meaning can be conveyed。 The Chinese saying “An able housewife can do no cooking without rice。” can well accounts for the situation。 Students have great difficulties in memorizing words and expressions, and even greater difficulties in telling the differences between words。 Students are confused with the differences between the English meaning and the Chinese meaning。 Words are used in different ways and convey different meanings。 And when it comes to how to remember the words, I have the special experience, I found it can be much more effective to remember the expressions in the specific context than inpidually。 So I insist the students remember words and expressions in passages, sentences or chunks。 Language chunks are the smallest language units。 I personally don’t suggest the students memorize words isolated。 If I were a teacher, I would encourage them to do a lot of sentence completions by filling blanks。 Vocabulary is really a problem for both teachers and students。 文献综述

Of course, grammar and sentence patterns are also significant。 From the Course of English Language Teaching we’ve learned that about 15 years ago, almost all the English teachings in China were grammar-based。 The teaching methods and approaches were quite limited。 Later changed into communication-based。  With the development of Internet, multi-media, both teachers and students can easily get access to a wider world of teaching and learning English。 Some people think grammar-based approach and communication-based approach exclude each other。 And they think the college entrance examination is also repellent to grammar。 But I think proper teaching based on grammar is helpful both to teachers and students, especially helpful in writing。 Grammar helps express and convey right meaning。 English structure is different from Chinese。 Chinese students think in Chinese and often intend to express in a Chinese way。 We must let the students know the way to express in English。 The tenses and voices are extremely important in writing。 Translation is also very useful。 In this way we can tell students how differently an English sentence is formed hence avoid the Chinglish。 

I used to write 200 words compositions for 2 hours, and pay too much attention on the vocabulary and grammar。 But when I came into English major, when I have to write more English compositions with much more words, I gradually found that it’s okay to write freely after we have possessed the basic grammar knowledge。 I still remember for the first two compositions required in the Integrated English Course, I got very good grades while I spend very short time on it, writing freely。 Although we still need the careful practices on the writing training, I found that writing freely in English can be a really effective and relax way to improve our ideas and improve our writing speed。 And I used to insist on keeping English diaries, which takes only several minutes but useful。

So if I were a teacher, I would like to recommend the students to form the habit of keeping English diaries。 It’s also quite a good idea to give the students topics of all kinds from different regions regularly, which can guarantee that students can develop all-round writing skills。