A Study On The Cooperative Feedback Mode And The Cultivation Of Critical Thinking Ability In High School English Writing

As a comprehensive English skill,writing is one of the most difficult parts in English teaching.More than writing itself,writing revision and feedback is a complicated process involving the myriad aspects of human thinking.While there is in recent years an increasing awareness in the importance of how the revising of high school English writing contributes to the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability,in actual practice,writing revision remains regretfully in the correction of grammar and vocabulary,much to the neglect of the improvement of the students’ thinking ability.The promising approach to this problem seems to lie in cooperative learning,for cooperative learning not only reflects the general goal of the Senior High School English Curriculum Standards,but also motivates students’ interest in English learning and respects individual differences.More importantly,it can enhance students’ awareness and ability to cooperate and promote the ability of thinking and self-reflection.Therefore,in the teaching of writing,cooperative learning has been widely discussed.However,most of the discussion tends to be tentative and,research on the cooperative mode of revision remains an area that awaits further exploration.This thesis put forward cooperative mode of English writing revision,which is assisted by the evaluation form and mainly in the forms of two-student,four-student and whole class cooperation.In the whole class cooperation,teachers and students work together to revise compositions and make use of students’ common errors.In this study,two classes(100 students of grade two in a senior high school in Fuzhou)are used as experimental subjects.Questionnaires,pretests,posttests,interviews and data analysis are used as research methods.The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the cooperative feedback mode on senior high school students’ writing ability and critical thinking ability.This experiment seeks to address the following problems: first,how could cooperative mode of writing revision improve students’ writing ability(in terms of conceptual contents,structural coherence and specific language use?);second,as compared with teacher-centered revision(feedback),how could a cooperative mode through interaction and discussion promote,if any,the students’ critical thinking ability? And finally,what are the tips that can be offered to optimize the strengths and avoid the weakness in the implementation of this mode?The research results show that the cooperative feedback mode of writing revision significantly improves both students’ writing ability and critical thinking ability.More specifically,our research arrives at the following findings:1)Compared with the teacher-centered revision,the cooperative mode of writing revision can promote students’ English writing ability in terms of the unity of content,accuracy in word choices and creativity in language use;2)A cooperative mode in which students are encouraged to peer reviews,active interaction and joint exploration could effectively foster students critical thinking ability,especially their interpretive,analytic and evaluation ability;and 3)The cooperative mode of writing revision not only reduces the teachers’ stress in response to student’s writing,but also maximizes students’ potential as writing subjects,enhancing thereby the students’ autonomy in learning and motivation in writing,resulting ultimately in the promotion of students’ cooperative awareness and ability.Based on the experimental results,this paper summarizes the strengths and inadequacies of the cooperative mode of revision in English writing teaching;it concludes by proposing corresponding countermeasures for related problems,and by expounding the prospect of the cooperative mode of English writing revision.This research is an attempt to enrich the theory of cooperative learning and to provide a reference for writing revision,which would hopefully yield its theoretical significance and practical value.Deficiencies and limitations of the present research do exist,including the monitoring of the post-class writing process and the improvement of the students’ inference ability,related issues await our in-depth exploration in future studies.