Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background to the Research
With the development of internationalization, the relationship between differentcountries is becoming more and more closing. Communication between different cultures isgetting more frequently. Language, as a communicative tool, plays an important role in theinternational exchange and corporation. Such is a nature, the importance of English, as aninternational language, is self-evident. In the twenty-first century, the number of Englishspeaker will reach approximately a quarter of the total population. There are many countriesregarding English as their official language and many countries choosing English as theirsecond language. Besides, English is also the official language of the United Nations. In short,English is an important communicative tool in the field of politics, economics, military,culture, trade, science and technology and so on.Based on the requirement of National English Curriculum Standards for General HighSchools, the general target in this period is to inspire and cultivate the students’ interest inEnglish learning, to develop students’ autonomous learning ability and cooperative spirit, toestablish self-confidence, to develop good learning habits and grasp learning strategies. Theteacher should lead the students to realize the differences between Western culture andEastern culture improve their humanistic quality and help students to establish correct outlookon life.Therefore, English teaching is not only about knowledge teaching, but also about thedevelopment of students’ language proficiency, including language skills, learning attitudeand learning strategies and so on, at the same time. Students’ writing level reflects theirmastery of language and their language proficiency. As one of the four basic skills in Englishteaching, speaking, listening, reading and writing, writing has been paid more attention to.There is a mutual promoting relationship between these four basic skills. According to theStandards, English learning can be divided into nine levels: students in senior high schoolshould reach the sixth, seventh and eighth levels. The requirement of those three levelsincludes: 1.stregthen students’ learning motivation, and cultivate their sense of autonomouslearning competence; 2. to cultivate their sustained learning motivation and sense ofautonomous learning competence; 3. to have self-confidence and autonomous learning ability.
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1.2 Research Questions
There are two methods which are going to be used in the process of this experiment:experiment and questionnaire. Through the detailed experiment and questionnaire, this papermainly talks about the effectiveness of the Narrative Approach in English teaching in seniormiddle school. More specifically, research questions include the following aspects:
1. What is the most effective way to apply the Narrative Approach in the Englishteaching in senior middle school?
2. Whether the implementation of the Narrative Approach in the process of Englishteaching arouses the students’ interests in English writing?
3. Whether the implementation of the Narrative Approach in the process of Englishteaching can improve the students’ writing ability and solve the current problems in Englishwriting teaching in senior middle school?
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 The Origins of the Narrative Approach
In order to understand the Narrative Approach clearly, we should first make a close studyof the origins of the Narrative Approach. The following will introduce the three main factorsof the origins of the Narrative Approach. “The awareness of the importance of narrative is one of the origins of the NarrativeApproach. During the study of narratology and cognitive poetics, we found that almost all ofthe researchers who from the fields of philosophy, literature, linguistics, psychology,education and other disciplines hold the same idea: storytelling is human nature.” (XiongMuqing & Deng Da, 2010: 105). Narrative is the basic way to express our mind. People alsouse narrative to organize their experience and memory (Herman, 2003: 164). So, in the lightof this statement, we can say that the importance of narrative is one of the main origins ofNarrative Approach.There is a long history of the study of narrative. From the beginning of the humancivilization, the relationship between storytelling and human beings is indissoluble. No matterin the West or in the East, there are many examples to illustrate this kind of view. In theancient Greece, the most famous Socratic Dialogue is one of the typical examples. Besides,the Holy Bible is also to convey the doctrines to the world through the description of theancient story of the humanity. There is also a long history of the study of the narrative in ourcountry. The main content of the Analects, the classical book of the Confucian school, ispresented by dialogue. It records the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples, and thepolitical views, educational principles and the moral values and so on. All of these arepresented through dialogues between Confucian and his disciples. In the Swedish Academy,the title of Mr. Mo Yan’s speech, the first Chinese writer who won the Nobel Prize forLiterature, is A Storyteller. He won the prize because he had integrated the folk stories, historyand contemporary society through realism.
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2.2 The Definition of Narrative Approach
Narrative approach, a new foreign language teaching method, is proposed by XiongMuqing in 2010. Drawing lessons from the research achievement of narrative theory andcognitive science, he advocates organizing teaching from the precepts of narration andcognition. The basic thinking of narrative approach: the narrative approach regards narrativeform as a medium. And the achievements of cognitive science and narrative theories areapplied to foreign language teaching. The purpose is to promote foreign language learners’cognitive ability effectively. From the aspect of its basic view, we can say that narrativeapproach is a sort of cognitive teaching approach (Xiong Muqing & Deng Da, 2010: 105)Narrative approach, an idea about language teaching, proposes a narrative method inforeign language teaching which means that a certain teaching process and textbook ( a text orone material, a language point, a grammatical or language teaching item) are designed andpresented in the form of narrative to create a real situation or possible world,, making studentsfarthest devoted to the situation constructed through narration, adequately exert their mentalabilities, such as of language, emotion, imagination, creation, etc. in phase and finally“acquire” language in the cognitive activities integrated with real-life and art. Meanwhile,narrative approach also refers to a teaching method and covers all kinds of specific teachingtechniques. It integrates the factors of “approach”, “method” and “technique” (Xiong Muqing& Deng Da, 2010: 105).
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Chapter Three Experimental Research .......... 16
3.1 Research Hypotheses.... 16
3.2 Experimental Design .... 16
3.2.1 Subjects ....... 16
3.2.2 Instruments ......... 16
3.2.3 Procedures........... 17
3.2.4 The Process of Teaching .... 18
3.3 Summary ....... 25
Chapter Four Results and Discussions.... 26
4.1 Data Collection ..... 26
4.2 Data Analysis and Discussion of the Questionnaire.......... 26
4.3 Data Analysis and Discussion of English Writing Tests ........... 32
4.4 Summary ....... 38
Chapter Five Conclusion .......... 39
5.1 Major Findings ..... 39
5.2 Limitations of the Research......... 40
5.3 Suggestions.... 40
5.4 Summary ....... 41
Chapter Four Results and Discussions
4.1 Data Collection
After the experiment, the following data were collected: 1. before the experiment, theresearcher should collect the results of the English writing scores (the pre-test) both of thecontrol class and the experimental class, and the results of the questionnaires both of the twoclasses; 2, during the experiment, nine English writing tests results have been collected.However, due to the limited spaces, the detailed results of the nine English writing scores willnot analyzed one by one; 3, after the experiment, the same questionnaire has been delivered tothe students of the experimental class to compare the results with the result of thepre-questionnaire. Besides, the results of the post-test of English writing also have beencollected and analyzed. It mainly talks about the comparison of the results of the post-test ofbetween the control class and the experimental class. As the subjects in the research were just in the second year of the senior middle school,the questionnaire were delivered in Chinese in order to lead the subjects understand thequestions clearly. The questionnaire includes thirty questions, and among those questions,eighteen of questions are designed to investigate the interest and the attitudes of the subjectstowards English writing, seven questions are used to check the subjects’ spirit of cooperationduring their process of English writing, and the last five questions are about the subjects’judgment of their English writing ability. The results of the data of the questionnaire will beanalyzed by the SPSS.
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Conclusion
Depending on the analyses of the shortcomings of English writing teaching in seniormiddle school, the researcher applied the Narrative Approach in the process of Englishteaching to prove the Narrative Approach is an effective way to promote the students’ Englishwriting ability. Through comparing the results of the control class and the experimental class,the study shows that the results of the experimental class are better than the results of thecontrol class, so, the hypotheses of the research have been verified. Then, we can safely drawa conclusion that the Narrative Approach has played a positive role in the promotion of thestudents’ English writing. So we must advocate the idea of applying the Narrative Approachin English teaching. The major findings of the research can be concluded as follows:
1. The students’ attitude towards English learning and English writing has changed a lot.Through the Narrative Approach, the students find that English writing is not just a test, andEnglish learning is not just for passing the examination, however, they can use English intheir daily life. Even they may make mistakes during they are speaking, especially the aspectsof grammar, they often use English after the course. Thus, the Narrative Approach stimulatesstudents’ interest in English learning and English writing.
2. The application of the Narrative Approach to the process of English teaching bringsforth improvement of student’s English writing ability. Besides, the students’ English writingcontents are becoming more and more rich and colorful. The average sentence length and thenumber of new words and phrases in students’ writings are increase.
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Reference (omitted)
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