Study On Applications Of Cooperative Learning In English Writing Teaching Of Higher Vocational Colleges

English writing is considered as one of language skills students should master, as well as a must of vocational abilities in the future career and life. It is a language activity, a media of communication, a process of thinking, and a reflection of expression abilities. However, the effect of English writing teaching (EWT) is not satisfactory due to a variety of reasons such as outdated traditional teaching model, students’ low interest and inadequate curriculum. Therefore, it is essential to find a way out for English teachers in educational reform.Cooperative Learning (CL) is an approach to motivating students to take part in academic projects and solve problems by reasonable job division and efficient cooperation in groups. CL, founded on the basis of students’ independent activities and initiative exploration, through all kinds of practices, promotes autonomous learning abilities, elevates vocational qualities and realizes the overall development.This thesis, introduces CL into EWT in Higher Vocational Colleges (HVC), and is expected to prove the effectiveness of CL through analysis of the following questions:1. Can CL improve students’ writing abilities?2. Can CL stimulate students’positive emotional responses?3. Can CL enhance students’ comprehensive language competence?4. Can CL promote students’ interpersonal communication and cooperation?At first, the thesis gives a brief introduction to the research background, the significance of the research and the organization of the thesis.Then the thesis presents literature review, including definitions of CL, theoretical bases of CL and related study of CL in EWT at home and abroad.Next, the thesis focuses on the application of CL in EWT in HVC, describes the methodology of the research and proposes the results and discussion. The author made an experiment in Wuhan Vocational College of Software and Engineering. The subjects consist of two classes of non-English majors involving76freshmen, one of which was chosen as the experimental class (EC) with36while the other as the control class (CC) with40. The pre-test, given to both EC and CC at the beginning of the experiment, showed that the students in these two classes had almost the same academic level before the experiment. After a20-week experiment, a post-test was conducted, which reflected that CL in EWT was more effective than traditional methods and the scores of EC have been improved more dramatically than those of CC. Meanwhile, one questionnaire and one interview were carried out to EC after the experiment to give an insight into the effectiveness of CL on students’writing abilities, positive emotional responses, comprehensive language competence, and interpersonal communication and cooperation.At last, the thesis comes to a conclusion. According to analysis of experimental data, the findings indicate that CL can improve students’ writing abilities, stimulate their positive emotional responses, enhance their comprehensive language competence and promote their interpersonal communication and cooperation.The effectiveness of CL in EWT in HVC has been proved, but it is a pity that some limitations remain in the research, which provides possibilities for other scholars to investigate this subject in depth and in the round, thus making contributions to promoting the English educational reform in HVC.