In recent years, sociocultural theory and its related ecolinguistics have begun to have an impact on foreign language teaching and research in China, and as a core concept of ecolinguistic language teaching, affordance has also received more attention in foreign language instruction circles. The word affordance originates from the field of ecology and gradually developed into the theory. This paper applies affordance theory to foreign language teaching to create the perceived opportunities and possibilities that the classroom environment offers learners. Ecological affordance in the English learning environment includes inter-psychological affordance and intra-psychological affordance. Internalization is the ultimate goal of second language learners' learning in the negotiation process of individual and social interactions. This research takes the interpretation of ecological theory and internalization theory as its starting point, finds out the compatibility of the two, and tries to construct a conceptual framework of the English knowledge internalization mechanism from the perspective of ecological affordances. By relying on the classroom demonstration activity "APBCPTG" (Academic Project-Based Composition Presentation Tasks by Group), this research uses narrative and interview methods to investigate the internalization mechanism of English knowledge in Chinese college students' writing courses. Later, it explores the internalization process, and what factors have a positive impact on Chinese college students' English writing performance.
The application of affordance theory to college English writing instruction aims to answer the following two research questions:
(1) In the teaching practice of College English writing in China, what is the role of inter-psychological and intra-psychological affordances in the internalization mechanism of college students' English knowledge?
(2) What factors in the internalization mechanism are most closely related to the English writing performance of Chinese college students?
One hundred and forty Students of Hubei Polytechnic University participated in this research questionnaire, including seventy students in the experimental class and another seventy in the control class. The experiment is carried out for a total of fourteen weeks. The experimental class adopted the teaching mode of affordance writing, and the control class adopted the traditional teaching mode. The research tools of this experiment are English composition tests and questionnaires, pre-and post-tests, and interviews. Then the researcher used SPSS 26.0 software to carry out a specialized statistical analysis on the experimental data of English composition tests and questionnaire surveys, pre-tests, and post-tests.
First, the researcher describes the inter-psychological and intra-psychological affordances between the ecological class and the natural class and finds that these two kinds of affordances can effectively promote the internalization of English knowledge. Second, the researcher explains the role of environmental ecological affordances in the process of internalization. At the same time, the researcher also found that the ecological writing teaching model effectively improved the English writing performance and writing level of college students. Finally, the internalization mechanism of English knowledge is regulated, and on this basis, the conceptual framework of the internalization mechanism of English knowledge is finally built. From the perspective of empirical research, combined with China's national conditions, this paper analyzes and discusses the important role of ecological affordance in Chinese College English writing courses. It also provides a reference for the future study of affordance theory through the internal environment. In particular, by extracting the affordance factors, the factors that affect Chinese students' English writing effects are proved(verified) from four dimensions. The ecological teaching method not only improves teaching but also makes up for the deficiencies caused by the task-based teaching method and the task-assisted teaching method that pays too much attention to language forms in recent years.