An Experimental Study of the Effects of Production-oriented Approach and Task-based Language Teaching on Senior High School Students’ English Writing

Based on theoretical foundation of Production-oriented Approach (POA) and Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT), a nine-week quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore the effects of POA and TBLT on senior high school students’ English writing. Two parallel classes of grade two in a senior high school in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were chosen as experimental classes, which were randomly assigned to either POA group or TBLT group. Combining standardized writing tests, validated questionnaires with semi-structured interviews, it aims at addressing the following two research questions- (1) What are the effects of POA and TBLT on complexity, accuracy and fluency of senior high school students’ English writing? (2) What are the effects of POA and TBLT on the senior high school students’ critical thinking skills? The research results showed that- (1) There existed significant difference of writing scores between POA group and TBLT group. Compared with TBLT, the application of POA was more contributed to improving complexity and accuracy of English writing of senior high school students. (2) There was no significant difference between two groups in the mean scores of overall critical thinking skills. But it existed significant difference in the dimension of analysis between POA group and TBLT group. Finally, according to the findings of the research, some suggestions for improving efficiency of English writing teaching are put forward for high school English teachers and the limitations of the study and suggestions for the future research are discussed.