The Application And Research In Group Cooperative Learning To Teaching Writing In High Schools

Although many English teachers spend lots of time correcting students’ writing, it seemsthat their hard work has not brought much effect. Our new round of basic educationcurriculum reform advocates willing participation, diligent exploration and active cooperation,and aims to train students’ skills of analyzing and solving problems and abilities ofcommunication and cooperation. As a result, the group cooperative learning method wasapplied to English writing lessons in senior high school. The writer adopted a way ofexperiment to prove the effectiveness of group cooperative learning and tried using thismethod in future English writing teaching. Group cooperative learning means that a group ofstudents study together, usually the group consists of2to6students and they cooperate witheach other in various study activities and fulfilling the task from the teacher is their commongoal. In order to improve the teaching quality and effect, it lays stress on student-centeredclasses, enhances teacher-student and student-student interactions and promotes students tolearn initiatively and sufficiently.This study was conducted from March2012to July2012and the subjects were students inclass29and class30of grade two in Qufu No.1High School of Shandong Province. Beforethe study, pre-test shows that there is no obvious distinction between these two classes intheir writing ability under the instruction of the same teacher. The writer chose class29as thecontrol class and class30as the experimental class with48and49students respectively. Inthe process of this specific experiment, the experimental class adopted group cooperativelearning method while the control class still employed traditional way of English writingteaching. According to the behavior of students in class, questionnaires，comparisons of twotests, and a T-test on the results of two classes’ English writing through SPSS software，theauthor found that the group cooperative learning method is more effective than traditionalteaching method in senior high school English writing teaching.Based on its literature review, this thesis employs social interdependence theory, Maslow’hierarchy of needs, concept of the zone of proximal development and Scaffolding Instructiontheory, of which the last two ones belong to constructivism theory, as its theoretical foundation, and it makes an empirical research on group cooperative learning applied toEnglish writing teaching in senior high school. The result shows that group cooperativelearning method can be of great help to strengthen students’ writing abilities and relieve theiranxiety and improve English classroom atmosphere，and build up students’ confidence. So itis safe to say that applying group cooperative learning method to English writing teaching isvery effective. Though the experiment has achieved its expected effect, it has somelimitations too—experimental period is not long enough and the number of participants is toosmall. So if the research had a more extensive coverage and lasted longer, the result would bemuch more convincing.According to the current problems existing in senior English writing teaching, this studycarried out group cooperative learning experiment in this field to see whether it can improvethe disadvantages of traditional English writing class, and found that it better strengthened theteacher-student and student-student interactions in teaching process, improved Englishteaching strategies, motivated students’ writing interest, and promoted the all-rounddevelopment of their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills compared with thetraditional English writing teaching method. In the meantime, carrying out group cooperativelearning in English can help transfer the examination-oriented education into quality-orientededucation, change traditional teacher-student relationship into a more productive one,cultivate students’ team-work spirit and cooperative awareness. The writer hopes that herresearch can bring some help to other English teachers in senior high school. In the future, thewriter will continue paying close attention to the problems and solutions of group cooperativelearning, and try to improve this method more in teaching practice.