An Action Research on the Effects of “Production-Oriented Approach” on Senior High School Students’ English Writing

The present study explored the effects of “production-oriented approach” (POA) on senior high school students’ English writing. 8-week action research of English writing in a senior high school in Inner Mongolia, China was carried out. The data were collected through writing tests and the questionnaire to answer the following research questions: What are the effects of POA on the senior high school students’ English writing performance and their critical thinking skills (CTSs)? The research results show that: 1. teaching writing based on POA could improve the language and content of English writing. In specific, concerning language, POA could improve the syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, lexical variation of complexity, fluency, and accuracy of English writing. However, there was no significant effect on the structure of English writing. 2. POA positively influenced students’ CTSs, especially in the dimensions of analysis, curiosity, justice, cognitive maturity, open-mindedness, and tenacity. However, the writing teaching with POA did not influence the dimensions of truth-seeking and self-confidence. Finally, combined with the research findings, some suggestions for improving senior high school students’ English writing and CTSs were put forward, and the limitations of this research and directions for the future research were discussed.