Cooperative Learning For Non-English Majors: A Method To Solve The Problem Of Psychology Block In EFL Writing

In China, English writing teaching is always a weak part in the English teaching. Although most teachers make great efforts on teaching writing, they get less. Non-English majors do not have English writing class, and English writing class belongs to reading class. However, reading class takes much time. Less time is allocated to writing in the non-English major English class. It is hard for most teachers to correct students' compositions seriously and the writing is taught mostly with the Product Approach.In the foreign language learning and teaching research field, scholars have discovered that affective factor plays a significant role in foreign language learning and teaching (Krashen, 1982; Wang, 2001). Brand (1991) noted that although psychologists have addressed social and emotional factors that affect interpersonal behavior, little has been done to the study of the relationship between these variables in compositions studies, where they might play a significance role. According to Kellogg (1994), many accomplished writers have attested to their need for routine, ritual, and the proper emotional and supportive environment for writing. For many famous writers, the absence of these situational and emotional supports will interfere with their writing. Therefore, this kind of research starts to carry out.Psychology during the process of writing has influence on students' effective reflection. In china, it is very hard to teach English writing. English writing is a hard nut to crack and there is no easy job to improve the students' writing competence, for emotion is virtually involved in the writing process as writing is a series of recursive activities of idea creation and social interaction as well as psychological cognition. There are two kinds of emotions: positive and negative emotions. The positive emotion facilitates language learning while the negative emotion hinders language learning. For the neglect of emotion the traditional Product Approach causes psychology block in the process of writing. Psychology block in writing of students seriously hinders the improvement of writing levels of university students and the composition teaching. However, Cooperative Learning is a good approach to stimulate students and overcome the psychology blocks during the process of writing.The research aimed to answer the following two questions:(1) Do these five kinds of psychology blocks—the psychological apprehension, the psychological unconcern, the psychological dependence, the psychological indolence, and the psychological self-humiliation—have effect on the effective reflection of students' EFL writing? If yes, to what extent?(2) Can Cooperative Learning solve the psychology block problem? If yes, to what degree?Participants invited in the research were two classes (70 students) of first-year non-English major students in the College of Peoples' Armed Force of Guizhou University. According to the scores they gained in the terminal examination in January, 2006, both classes were almost at the same English level. One class was randomly assigned the experimental class and the other the control class. The same teacher taught both the experimental and control classes. The experimental class was taught with Cooperative Learning method while the control class was taught with the Product Approach. The experiment lasted a whole semester of 18 weeks, from March 2007 to July 2007. The research mainly used the questionnaire, writing and interview in order to investigate the problem. The data obtained from the two questionnaires, pre-test, post-test analyses by SPSS 11.5.In the pre-test, the result indicated that students in the two classes had similar English writing proficiency. After teaching experiment, the post-test mean score of students in the experimental class was higher than that in the control class. Through two questionnaires, two interviews, textual analysis and correlation analysis, the researcher found that students in the experimental class make the progress in the English writing and own the positive emotion during the process of writing. The result successfully answered the Research Questions.The thesis consists of altogether six chapters.Chapter One (Introduction) introduce psychology block existed in the process of English writing, causes of psychology block, current situation of teaching EFL writing, current approaches used in the process of teaching EFL writing, and the aim and the significance of the study.Chapter Two deals with the theoretical foundations—the development of education psychology, Krashen's monitor model and writing and emotion.Chapter Three mainly introduces the definition, characteristics, and techniques of Cooperative Learning. Finally it points out the current research status of Cooperative Learning in China.Chapter Four describes the participants, instruments, design, major procedures of the teaching research carried out in the College of Peoples' Armed Force of Guizhou University English classroom, and some problems in implementing Cooperative Learning.Chapter Five presents data collection and experiment results. Through the data collected from questionnaires, pre-test and post-test, it proves that psychology blocks existed in the process of writing and disrupted the students' effective reflection. Cooperative Learning could help students solve the psychology blocks and reflect effectively during the process of writing.Chapter Six points out the findings of the research, the pedagogical implications of the findings, and limitations of the research, finally points out the suggestions for the further research.