Application Of Group Discussion In College English Writing Teaching

College English teaching has long been teacher-centered, ignoring the development of students' subjectivity. It thus comes to be a very significant research topic how to avoid cramming method in writing teaching, how to inspire students' initiative to write actively and how to arrange writing teaching activities according to student-oriented principle, to improve their writing competence.Comparing with the conventional way of writing teaching, group discussion, emphasizing the writing process, holds its advantageous position in enhancing students' cooperation, developing students' writing ability and in improving writing teaching quality effectively.This paper exposes the function of group discussion in improving students' writing ability in the light of the actual condition of college English writing teaching. It elaborates the theoretical basis of application of small group discussion (that is, the Constructive Theory and Cooperative Theory) and it also reveals its theoretical significance and practical value.To verify the hypothesis that group discussion can improve students' writing ability, an investigation was made by observing the English class to which applied the method of group discussion, and so were a questionnaire and a private talk. The result is that group discussion can make students more confident in English writing, enrich the contents of their compositions, increase their discourse consciousness , improve their spoken English, enhance their readership and effectively improve their English writing ability.Finally, the problems emerged from the activities have been analyzed and appropriate measures have been provided.