3. ekphrasis 3

3.1 The Definition and a Brief History of ekphrasis 3

3.2 Recent Study about ekphrasis Home and Abroad 4

3.3 Ekphrasis in English Writing 5

3.3.1 The Connection Between ekphrasis and English Writing 5

3.3.2 The Significance of Picture Writing (ekphrasis) 6

3.4 The Application of Ekphrasis 7

3.4.1 Current Picture Writing Tasks in China 7

3.4.2 New Ways of Applying Ekphrasis in English Writing 7

4. Discussion 13

5. Conclusion 14

References 15

 1. Introduction 

    New English Curriculum 2011 advocates quality-oriented education and all-round learning. Therefore, a language teacher should focus on developing Students’ learning interests and positive attitude, cultivating their sense of the language and developing their language abilities including listening, speaking, reading and writing. English writing, as one of the most important aspects of language acquisition, has earned increasing attention in middle school. However, problems come along, like psychological blockage, such as anxiety, lack of interests; negative transference of the mother tongue; intralingua errors, like grammar mistakes, unorganized ideas, boring and dull contents, most of which are all test oriented, so there will be a fixed model. Moreover, it also reminds me of my teaching practice, during which I would help to check the students’ writings. There were two classes of different levels, basing on their grades, one was better than the other. The better class could use a lot of advanced words and express themselves clearly, besides, they knew how to narrate. They know how to make the information concrete, natural and reasonable However, the other class, in writing, just had nothing much to say. Most of them just translated the information in the stem and described something unnecessary. It attracted my attention: how to help them enrich their writings and write more naturally. I think the fundamental solution is to cultivate their interest and develop their descriptive ability. In this case, a traditional teaching tool came into mind: picture. It plays a very important role in teaching, including English teaching, because it can release teachers from a lot of work, and at the meantime, attract students’ interests, through the colorful and specific paintings, which is similar to a famous theory: ekphrasis. So, this essay will study on the topic of ekphrasis in teaching of English writing, trying to analyse the recent English Writing situation in China, put up with the major problem: students’ interest and descriptive ability in writing, and try to improve it with the application of ekphrasis.

2. English Writing 

2.1. Current Picture Writing Tasks in China

    Current research in composing (Murray 1980) shows that writing is an extremely complex intellectual-linguistic process, which involves the recursive application of a wide range of thinking skills and language abilities. According to Murray, there are three stages: rehearsing, drafting and revising. The whole process is the comprehensive using of English, including: thinking, grammar, structure, etc. Writing not only helps to develop one's mind, but also stimulates thinking, as it enables one to concentrate and organize one's idea and cultivates the ability to summarize, analyze and criticize. It is regarded as a very important part of education. As the motherland of English, many western countries first developed a lot of writing theories. The Aristotle time, 2000 years ago, of the Classic Rhetoric Theory, which has played a very important role in teaching of English writing. Until today, we can still see its effect in shaping of writing ideas, organization and style. It has the training value, as it pays more attention to the results. Under the guidance of this theory, the teaching process will be practical, and teachers will be the center of the class, and it will be beneficial for management. Nevertheless, it ignores students’ role in writing and students are controlled by the teacher in that they can’t decide what to write and can’t dig out information by themselves, which reduce their confidence and passion in English writing. The next phase is the Process Theory of Writing, which restates the importance of process. It believes that the success of writing includes the procedure as: looking for information, prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, etc. Meanwhile, it emphasizes cooperation and discussion with others. The most different part from the Classic Rhetoric Theory is that students will be the center of the class, so they will be freer and have more interests in writing. However, it doesn’t develop in China. Later, Lave and Wenger started the Social Study Theory in 1999 which highlights the real situation. It holds that learning should be based on real communication. After 1995, Genre Writing attracts scholars and English teachers’ attention. It believes that different genres of writing can deliver different information and have different social functions. In this way, limited genres in writing will limit true information. Besides, a great number of researches, like critical thinking, or motivation for writing, etc, have appeared.