Syntactic Knowledge through English News as a Vehicle for Writing Performance

Abstract

Amid the ever-increasing importance of written communication accelerated by the robust spread of the Internet, this study, based on the assumption that the syntactic competence serves as a secure footing for writing performance, conducted syntactic training with 55 Japanese university students over a single semester. Use of newspapers as grammar learning materials was also of much significance regarding cultivation of media literacy. Students were also assigned to write on news of their interest before and after the syntactic training, which was analyzed in the aspects of complexity, accuracy, fluency, and criticalness. Results showed a rise in students’ syntactic competence after the syntactic training. Meanwhile, their writing performance showed improvement in general, but not in accuracy, the reason of which was analyzed from the author’s viewpoints, with an aim to pursue a more desirable method of equipping university students with better English writing performance to survive in a global society.