Study on Blended Learning of English Writing in University

Ou Sijia

Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University,Jilin,China

Email:osj2007@163.com

[Abstract] The blended learning is an effective teaching method,which helps English writing establish the teaching objectives and carry out a step-by-step teaching plan according to the learning situation.Its advantages can be brought into play.The blended learning of English writing conforms to the general trend of the integration of university teaching and network,and solves the problems existing in the course of English writing.With network technology,English writing combines teaching and practice and overcome the limitations of traditional teaching.Students improve the ability of critical thinking,cross-cultural understanding ability and autonomous learning ability.

[Keywords] English writing;blended learning;practice

Introduction

With the development of the times and the innovation of information technology,English class in university is no longer limited to the traditional face-to-face teaching.The central goal of value guidance,knowledge transfer and ability training require the innovation of English teaching in university.English writing is based on consolidating basic English knowledge,strengthening students'comprehensive skills of humanistic quality and cross-cultural understanding.The writing is a process of comprehensively using thought,knowledge,skills and language to complete multiple functions such as thinking and expression.With the arrival of the "Internet Plus" era,the concept of blended learning has been endowed with new connotations.It has gradually developed into a teaching situation based on the combination of mobile communication equipment,online learning environment and classroom discussion.(Feng,2018,p.15) Based on flipped classroom,MOOC,micro-class,SPOC,APP and others,study on blended learning of English Curriculum has become the mainstream.(Li,2019,p.229)

The Current Situation of English Writing Teaching in University

English writing teaching in university focuses on teaching writing skills and writing practice.For a non-native language writing teaching,teachers not only teach writing skills and rhetoric,but also popularize cross-cultural differences in linguistic usage.Grammar is also one of the unavoidable teaching contents.Due to the limitation of class hours,writing practices are often compressed,which leads to having no enough time for teachers'correction and students' article polishing.It is difficult to meet repeated revision and feedback,which results in the tedious writing tasks being unable to be deeply analyzed one by one.Writing courses are also difficult to break through the difficulties of teaching,correcting and students'progress.It is hard for students to get qualitative improvement in the process of learning writing.

English writing is an applied skill course,and the contents of many courses are mainly practical writing.Although the clear goal emphasizes the application of writing,it is also easy to ignore the stylistic features of writing and the promotion and help of different genres of writing to students' innovative thought.For many students,the foundation of English writing is learning words and grammar,which causes them fall into the misunderstanding that a composition with no problem in grammar is a good one,as long as they memorize words well.This misunderstanding of English writing will weaken students'interest and initiative in learning writing.

The Connotation and Advantages of the Blended Learning

With the upsurge of online learning,blended leaning came into being.In recent years,blended learning theory has gradually become a popular term in the field of education.It is not only a teaching mode,but also an innovative teaching strategy.It is an internal integration of traditional classroom teaching and online teaching.

Blended learning is to combine the advantages of traditional teaching methods with those of online teaching.It reflects the teacher's inspiration and guidance in the classroom,and plays the role of students' autonomous learning and strengthens students' subject consciousness.Blended learning is a deep integration of online learning and faceto-face learning.It realizes the integration of different teaching concepts,and realizes the integration of students'participation and teachers'leading role.

The integration of blended learning breaks the limitation of space and time,and endows English writing with openness and flexibility.Students can accumulate knowledge with the help of a large number of learning materials,and enhance their initiative and enthusiasm in English learning.It can meet learners'different requirements for learning contents and learning objectives.

Through the combination of online learning and face-to-face learning,the basic principle of student-centered is implemented,and the subjectivity and initiative of students in the teaching process are reflected.(Zhang,2014.p.106)With the help of the network platform,students can realize discussion and real-time interaction,which highlight students'initiative.The guiding role of teachers in blended learning can also come true.

Tentative Study on Blended Learning of English Writing

Blended learning of English writing breaks through the limitation of class hours,effectively links traditional classroom with online teaching,and enables students to form knowledge system and writing ability in a limited time.Teachers guide students to correctly understand the significance of writing and clarify the cultivation of English comprehensive ability to master the basic knowledge of English.Students can know the essence of writing is to show readers their own ideas and to discuss innovative articles speculatively.Through writing task design,students can create knowledge construction and thinking training,so that students can repeatedly experience the whole process of topic selection,conception,material collection,creation and modification.The thesis is aimed English major students in their first grade,who have a solid foundation in English.The teaching content takes Characterization of Narrative Writing as an example.

Teaching Objectives

English writing takes advantage of the Internet Plus era,whose characteristics is open,interactive and personalized,to carry out teaching reform and innovation.It promotes teaching to achieve good results,and comprehensively improve students'English writing level.During the limited time,the combination of learning and practice enables students to learn English writing norms,reasonably use vocabulary to form sentences,skillfully organize sentences into paragraphs,master the writing skills of any genre articles,and apply to various rhetorical devices.It requires more for students to form critical thinking,realize cross-cultural understanding,and improve the ability of social language.

Before class:Preparation

The teaching task of character writing is to let students introduce a well-known character.Besides,teachers recommend MOOC for character writing,so that students can consult English writing materials purposefully and consciously through task-driven,accumulate vocabulary,and review the methods and key points of narrative writing.Driven by task-based activities,students complete a whole writing process to acquire writing knowledge,select main topic,analysis character characteristics,organize related words and paragraphs.

Teachers take tasks as the guide to stimulate students'inner cognition and initiative,and improve their metalanguage ability.The arrangement of writing tasks follows progressive principle,choose the topic around the students,let students observe life,experience life and then think about life.

In class:Task-based Teaching

Teacher selects several students' composition about the character to let others guess who they are.After guessing,teacher asks students to summarize the characteristics of the writings that were quickly guessed,and then let the students summarize how to describe a character.Teacher lists the writing skills and takes examples to make clear that the description of the character can depict what character looks,says,does,and feels.In the part of self-inspection,students revise one or two models to check whether they understand what they have learned.

Classroom teaching has focused on aspects of perspective,language and article structure respectively.In class,teachers present typical composition examples and evaluation standard.By means of students'mutual evaluation and teachers'comments,students know how to write,and gradually establish consciousness of revising articles repeatedly,as well as find out the shortcomings in their writing.Meanwhile,they learn to find the bright spots of other people's articles and gain mutual promotion.

After class:Revision and Writing

Revision for students mainly focus on grammar and structure.They can use the network writing platform system to modify grammar problems,or choose MOOC to supplement grammar knowledge,and satisfy different demand of accurate explanation of grammar.On the network communication platform,it is conducted one-on-one to solve specific problems in students'compositions.In addition,tasks online can be arranged to guide students to discuss the revision of compositions in groups,so that they refine points and language,exchange writing ideas and internalize knowledge,and realize the practical integration of unity of knowledge and practice.After a while,teacher can check out if students can explain events clearly or not,and furthermore shows the depth and breadth of analysis.

Evaluation of Writing Teaching

In the evaluation,the Teacher-Student Collaborative Assessment is adopted,which combines the teacher evaluation,student self-evaluation,peer evaluation and survey.Thus,students can know the problems existing in their writing from different perspectives.Meanwhile,it is the feedback for teachers to make timely adjustments to teaching methods.

Teacher evaluation is achieved in online and class respectively.Grammar modification is completed through APP.In class,teacher present typical examples to students for discussion in groups to realize student evaluation.In addition,teacher gives reasonable modification opinions for students to revise.It makes students pay attention to the quality of writing in class,and examine the application effect of language and discourse structures learned before.

Conclusion

The blended learning of English writing,on the one hand,conforms to the general trend of the integration of university teaching and network.On the other hand,it uses the advantages of multimedia and information technology to overcome the limitations of traditional teaching and online learning.The thesis focuses on the teaching of English majors to explore the innovative teaching mode,and extends the teaching and learning time continuously.It makes the combination of learning and practice to help students to establish writing habits,to stimulate learning interest,to form critical thinking,to realize cross-cultural understanding,and comprehensively use English professional knowledge to analyze and solve practical problems.