An Application Of Cooperative Learning In English Writing Teaching In High Schools

Although many English teachers spend a lot of time and energy responding to students' writing, it still seems that their hard work did not seem to bring much effect. By means of questionnaires and interview, the present study has found that writing teaching method is a teacher-centered approach in which students were the passive recipients of writing knowledge and marks. Teachers could not give instant feedback because of the large size of class. The writing has often been synonymous with the teaching of grammar or sentence structures. Many educators claim that writing is not a solitary act; rather, it is the result of the interaction among people, contexts and texts. It is a social act. The present thesis puts forward an alternative of teaching writing, aiming to find an effective way to it.Through before-and-after questionnaires and interview, cooperative writing has had a positive impact on ESL students' writing attitudes and habits. During cooperative writing, students can discuss with their teacher about the skills in writing. The teacher can in turn get a better perspective on what the students lack for a better writing. It also helps to find out the techniques that students need for writing good compositions. Students can receive positive feedback directly and efficiently. Cooperative writing involves pre-writing work of brainstorm ideas and revising the drafts by classmates to gain peer's feedback. This enables all of the students to understand the purpose of the writing process more profoundly, i.e., to explore, develop, focus, organize, and finally to share ideas with others. Cooperative writingallows students to write an initial draft, make two revisions (one on content, one on grammar) and to produce a final copy. Writing knowledge and skills are internalized. Later, they will transfer some of their classroom skills to their individual composing activities. At the same time cooperative writing helps students to develop students' communicative competence, as well as the ability to learn from each other via language. As a result, the students are greatly encouraged to participate in writing activities and thus it facilitates the development of their abilities to write in English.