Web-Based Collaborative Learning On English Writing-An Experimental Study On Adult Education

With the development of the modern society, continuing education is becoming more and more popular. According to the two-year teaching practice in adult English education, the researcher here found most adults had problems in language output capacity, especially in English writing. Thus this research was conducted to improve adults'English writing ability. Employing Blog and Email, this study adopted Internet to facilitate an online collaborative learning format. With a whole semester's study, the subjects here were English major students from School of Continuing Education, Beijing Language and Culture University. Besides, constructivism and cognitive psychology were referred as literature theories in this study. The procedure of online collaborative learning included group discussion, first draft, peer revision, final draft and paper publishing online. In addition, there were one pre-test, mid-test and post test, one interview, three writing tasks and four pieces of surveys in the whole semester; after that all of the data was collected and analyzed.Focused on online collaborative learning, this paper discussed the following questions:(1) the negative mother-tongue transfer influence in English writing; (2) adults'learning motivation and its influence; and (3) learning apprehension in adults' English writing. By comparing the result between the pre-test and post test, there was an obvious improvement in students' writing performance. The negative influence of negative mother-tongue language transfer was weakened; and students'learning motivation was promoted; while their learning apprehension relieved with collaboration and peer encouragement.Therefore, as an experimental study in collaborative learning, this research had its pedagogical meaning in adults'EFL teaching and learning. For one thing, the subject of this study had its unique character; and the facilitation of Blog and Email as an online platform was a practice for E-teaching reformation. Nevertheless, due to the time and condition, this study had its limits which need further discussion and study.