Date of Graduation
1993
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This study was designed to examine the English writing tasks assigned to undergraduate students in four-year colleges and universities in China, the students' English writing apprehension, the Chinese college EFL instructors' training in English writing, and their teaching strategies. The data collection procedure consisted of two parts: 340 questionnaires were mailed to people, who received their Bachelor's degrees in China after 1980 and mainly stayed in the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State University, and West Virginia University, to obtain information on college English writing tasks and the respondents' English writing apprehension; and seven interviews were conducted in West Virginia University among students, who were college English instructors in China, to find out Chinese college English instructors' educational background and their teaching strategies in writing. The findings showed that over three-fourths of the respondents did controlled writing, and around 47.2% indicated that the writing task they did most in their college English class was Translation, which were consistent with the literature. The multiple regression analysis showed that 18.3% of the variance in writing apprehension can be predicted by TOEFL, Master Degree, Gender, Writing Course, and Length of Stay in the U.S., which were statistically significant ({dollar}\\alpha{dollar} = 0.05). TOEFL stands out as the most important variable in predicting writing apprehension. The finding indicated that males tended to have a lower writing apprehension score than females, which is opposite to that of studies done on American students. This difference may attribute to the differences of culture and ideology between oriental and Western societies. As China is still male-dominated, males are encouraged to make a high evaluation of their abilities. The results agreed with the literature that English instructors had some training in English writing, but they usually did not have any systematic training on education theories and teaching methodology except for those from teachers' universities. English instructors' typical approaches to teaching writing were product-oriented. Grammar accuracy has remained the predominant concern of the college English instructors. In conclusion, four recommendations were made for college English curriculum improvement, and suggestions were posed for future research.
Recommended Citation
Xu, Libin, "A survey of college English writing instruction in China and suggestions for improvement." (1993). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 10060.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/10060