1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

Writing is one of the four basic skills of English learning (listening，speaking,reading and writing). Many researches have shown that the four language skills areclosely connected with each other, while good writing ability can help promote otherskills to a great extent. And it has been widely recognized that writing has an importantrole to play in English teaching in senior high schools. But actually, many students insenior hi schools don't do well in English writing. They are always reluctant or evenafiaid of writing English compositions. The reasons lie in both teachers and students. During the daily English teaching, teachers always spend more time in dealing withvocabulary，grammars and exercises instead of guiding students to practice writing. As aresult, although students may have leamt some words and phrases, they are still unable toapply them correctly and precisely，let alone write complete and acceptable Englishcompositions. In fact, students' attitude is easily influenced by the teacher's, so if theteacher attaches great importance to English writing, students will also take it moreseriously. Besides what has hcea discussed above，it is also a fact that teachers sometimes failin inspiring students' interest in English writing. There are so many reasons for this，forexample, the teacher never thinks of adjusting the writing forms or contents according tostudents' interest and features, but always assigns the similar and boring writing tasksinstead.

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1.2 Purpose of the study

"Senior High school English New Curriculum Standards (experimental)" explicitlyexplains the requirement of senior high school students' writing ability and has a cleardescription on the evaluation of students' English writing ability. It also points out thatstudents of different learning levels should fiilfill different writing goals, and the eighthstage is the one that high school graduates must achieve in order to participate in thenationd college entrance examination, namely: (1) to write a coherent and completepassage, to narrate stories or express opinions and attitudes; (2) to retell or write asummaiy according to what you read; (3) to arrange the style and structures well; (4) towrite an essay or report according to the information provided by words and diagrams.From what has been presented above，we can realize the importance of English writing insenior high school English learning. However，as a highly complex and productivelearning activity，English writing has still been a quite big problem to the students insenior high schools. Besides，the traditional way of teaching and evaluating Englishwriting in senior high school，which is somewhat single and mechanical, is not soeffective to help promote students' English writing ability. Therefore, the author conductsthe research to study the influence of the English letter communication method onstudents' English writing ability, witihi the purpose of finding out an acceptable andeffective way to improve students' English writing ability as well as their attitudetowards English writing.

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2. Literature Review

2.1 The English letter communication method

Communication, as is explained in the Oxford dictionary, is "the imparting orexchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium”，whichhas the following common forms: “A letter or message containing information or news”，“The successful conveying or sharing of ideas and feelings，，，and “Social contact". Soaccording to different criteria，communication can be divided into different categories.The English letter communication can be recognized as one specific form ofcommunication. Here in this research, the communication is going on between teachersand students with the aim of motivating students to practice more English writing, so theprocess can be called "teacher-student English letter communication method". Since it isa new way of English writing teaching put forward by the author herself, there is noexisting academic definition of it. According to the author's own teaching experience andreflection and taking the communication form, the communication subjects，thecommunication language and the communication purposes into consideration, the authordefines the teacher-student English letter communication method as follows; It is ateaching method used to promote students to practice English writing by means of thewritten-form communication between teachers and students in English，that is to say，theteachers and students regularly write letters to each other in English in which they canexchange thoughts, discuss problems and communicate with each other freely. The factthat constant writing practice is definitely useful in promoting students' writing ability isone reason for adopting this method.

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2.2 Theoretical basis

The Interaction Hypothesis was first advanced by Michael Long，and is widelyregarded as a fiirther supplement or extension of the Input Hypothesis in second languageacquisition. It is interpreted in the Wikipedia like this: "Long's interaction hypothesisproposes that language acquisition is strongly facilitated by the use of the target languagein interaction. Similarly to Krashen's Input Hypothesis, the Interaction Hypothesis claimsthat comprehensible input is important for language learning. In addition, it claims thatthe effectiveness of comprehensible input is greatly increased when learners have tonegotiate for meaning."For the significant role interaction plays in second language acquisition, we can alsofind the statement: "Interactions often result in learners receiving negative evidence. Thatis, if learners say something that their interlocutors do not understand, after negotiationthe interlocutors may model the correct language form. In doing this，learners can receivefeedback on their production and on grammar that they have not yet mastered. Theprocess of interaction may also result in learners receiving more input from theirinterlocutors than they would otherwise. Furthermore, if learners stop to clarify thingsthat they do not understand, they may have more time to process the input they receive.This can lead to better understanding and possibly the acquisition of new language forms.Finally, interactions may serve as a way of focusing learners' attention on a differencebetween their knowledge of the target language and the reality of what they are hearing;it may also focus their attention on a part of the target language of which they are not yetaware."

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3. Methodology.......15

3.1 Research questions....... 15

3.2 Research subjects....... 15

3.3 Instruments.......16

3.3.1 Tests .......16

3.3.2 Questionnaire.......   16

3.3.3 Interview....... 17

3.4 Procedures of the English letter communication.......17

4. Results and Analysis........22

4.1 Analysis of the tests .......22

4.2 Analysis of the questionnaire....... 27

4.3 Analysis of the interview........ 31

5. Conclusion...... 36

5.1 Major findings....... 36

5.2 Implications and suggestions....... 37

5.3 Limitations .......  38

4. Results and Analysis

4.1 Analysis of the tests

In NMET, the main form of testing students' English writing ability on theexamination paper is the part "written expression". So in this study, the author adoptedthis testing form and held two writing tests before and after the experiment, which can bea basis for the further investigation into the influence of the English letter communicationmethod on students' writing ability. Table 4,1.2 reports the statistical results of the experimental class (class21) andcontrolled class (class22) in the pre-test: The sample number of class 21 is 55，the totalpoints 898，the mean value 16.336，the variance 6.917 and the std. deviation 2.630. Thesample number of class 22 is 57，the total points 939，the mean value 16.474，thevariance 6.365 and the std. deviation 2,550.According to the figures given in the chart，it can be clearly seen that the mean valueof class 21 is almost indistinguishable from that of class22，from which we can draw aconclusion that the students' English writing level in experimental class and controlledclass are approximately equal，so the teaching experiment on this basis is effective.

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Conclusion

From the results and analysis of the study，we can have answers for the researchquestions now.Firstly，the teacher-student English letter communication method can improvestudents' writing proficiency. Both the test scores and the detailed compositioncomparisons have shown that the students' progress in English writing in the experimentclass is much more obvious and significant. The deep-seated reason lies in that the formof correspondence can motivate students to write English more willingly andspontaneously, so this kind of English writing practice means a pleasure rather than a taskto them. Based upon this, the teacher-student English letter communication method ismore effective than the traditional teaching method in enhancing students' writingproficiency.

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Reference (omitted)