Instructional Design Of English Writing Based On Cooperative Learning Theory In Senior High School

The instructional design, under CLT (cooperative learning theory) in NCEC (New Criteria for English Curriculum), is concerned with an English writing lesson How to write a chart composition. The theoretical basis of the instructional design is cooperative learning theory. The significance of the instructional design lies in two aspects:one is to help students improve their abilities to write chart compositions, thus getting satisfactory improvement in this kind of writing tasks; the other is to provide some reference for the teaching of senior-one English writing.The instructional design is mainly made up of three parts:pre-design analyses of its major elements, design of teaching process and post-design reflections.Before the instructional design, its major elements are analyzed in terms of learners, teaching contents and teaching objectives. In terms of learners, they are the tenth-graders who have just stepped into the senior high school. They are the top students in that grade, most of whom are interested in science and pay less attention to English study, thus resulting in their lack of motivation in writing. In terms of teaching contents, the author chooses How to write a chart composition. It aims to teach students how to complete their writing tasks with the help of peer cooperation. In terms of teaching objectives, three main perspectives including language skills, learning strategies and affective factors are analyzed. The language skill in this instructional design focuses on the English writing skill. The main objective of learning strategy in this study is to teach students how to learn by peer cooperation. The teaching objective in terms of affective factors in this study is how to arouse students’ interest in English writing.The specific instructional design consists of three steps:pre-teaching stage, first round of writing and second round of writing. The pre-teaching stage includes brief introduction of cooperative learning, grouping and training. The first round of writing includes pre-writing stage, first composition draft and teacher’s comments. The second round of writing include peer feedback, presentation of two writing samples, presentation of teacher feedback, second draft and teacher’s re-comments. The reflections on the instructional design mainly concentrate on the teaching objectives and teaching process, of which the reflections on the teaching objectives are made in terms of three parts:affective factors, learning strategies and writing skills. Generally speaking, the teaching objectives are achieved. To be more specific, except for several students with extremely poor writing abilities and uncontrollable objective factors, their objectives for affective factors, learning strategies and writing skills are achieved. The students experienced successfully the process of how to learn by peer cooperation under the context of NCEC, their interest in writing were mostly stirred up and they get clear about how to write a chart composition with the help of many cooperative teaching activities.