A study of improving medical university students' writing ability by English newspaper reading teaching / 中华医学教育探索杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To verify the effect of English newspaper reading teaching on improving students' writing ability. Methods Forty students in Binzhou Medical College choosing English news-paper reading as elective course were enrolled as experimental group while 40 students not choosing English newspaper reading as elective course were enrolled as control group. English newspaper read-ing was introduced into the selective course and www.pigai.org was employed to do online real-time composition writing. Differences in pre-test (before online real-time composition writing)and post-test (after online real-time composition writing) scores were compared by paired t test and P<0.05 was considered statistically different. Results There were statistical differences between pre-test and post-test scores in experimental group (t=-17.590,P =0.000). There was no statistical difference between pre-test and post-test scores in control group (t=1.347,P=0.186). There were statistical differences in accuracy,complexity,fluency and coherence of the composition between pre-test and post-test in ex-perimental group. Conclusions English newspaper reading teaching plays an important part in im-proving medical college students' writing ability. After a semester of English newspaper reading, the writing ability of students had obviously improved in language accuracy,complexity,fluency and co-herence.