The Cooperation Learning In English Writing Class Of SEFC

As stipulated in the new English Curriculum Standards, the graduates of senior high middle schools in China have to reach band eight in English writing, which means that the requirements in writing for students are higher than before. English writing is playing a more and more important role in international communication and cooperation. However, in China, we always do not attach much importance to English writing in our school education. There are still many problems in English writing teaching at middle schools. For example, emphasis is put on the writing results instead of the writing process. And teachers spend a lot of time and energy correcting the grammar mistakes of students'compositions, but seldom pay attention to students'invention and organization. In recent years, many advanced theories of learning have been introduced to China. Among them, cooperative learning is considered as one of the most popular and effective theories and it has been used in teaching all the subjects. Therefore, this paper will try to analyze cooperative learning in English writing class and make some suggestions for English writing class.This paper consists of six parts. The first part begins with a background of widely-used cooperative learning and the existing situation of the teaching English writing in China in order to lead to the necessity of cooperative learning in English writing class. The purposes of the experiment are also included in this part. Part two and Part three demonstrate the theoretical frameworks of this experiment, including cooperative learning and writing approaches. Part Two first deals with the history and development of cooperative learning and the definition of it, and then presents the characteristics and the five major theories related to cooperative learning, that is constructivism, social development theory, motivational perspectives, social cohesion perspective and cognitive elaboration perspective. Part Three introduces approaches to the teaching of English writing. Comparison is made between the traditional approach and the process approach to show the advantages of the process approach. In the process approach, students interact one another cooperatively in the heterogeneous groups. They help each other to choose a topic and offer peer review. The active cooperation between students transforms the traditional one-way communication into mutual communication. The process is focused on the cooperative writing in class, including pre-writing, drafting and revising. Hence, students know how to write an essay after writing cooperatively. The cooperative writing strategies are also presented, including establishing writing contexts to stimulate students'writing motivation, exploring alone and experiencing positively, building up a relaxed democratic atmosphere to relieve their anxiety, help activate their imagination, creativity, and active evaluation in their writing process.The fourth part shows the design and the procedures of the experiment. An effective way of cooperative learning in English writing class is explored here. In pre-writing, students hold a group discussion about what to write and share their ideas on the topic. Then they draw up their own outline and write the first draft. One of the students is asked to write his own on the blackboard, which can act as a model for evaluation. After that, the teacher with the whole class evaluates the writing according to certain criteria so that they are familiar with the evaluation process. Then they can continue their evaluation in groups of four. The teacher acts as a classroom manager to ensure students'performance as required. Students write their second draft based on peer feedback and hand it in. The teacher makes some comments on the students'composition in time. Students who make much progress or write well are praised and their compositions are put up on the wall in the classroom. And they will feel proud of it. With their confidence strengthened, they will make concreted efforts to make greater progress.In Part five, the results of the experiment are analyzed and the comparison is made between the compositions of the control class and the experimental class. The statistical results of pre-test and post-test are tested with a two-tailed t-test, which shows that there is no significant difference between the two classes before the experiment but after the experiment there is significant difference. The compositions from the experimental class vary in word choices, structures, organization and so on. The last part contains the conclusions. That is, cooperative learning is more effective than traditional approaches in improving students'writing ability. Cooperative writing can help reduce students'anxiety and stimulate students'interest in English writing to make them learn how to write, enjoy writing and improve their writing ability. It also can create a relaxed democratic atmosphere which encourages students to give full scope to their imagination and creativity. So, they are more willing to help each other and more active in their studies. And their ability of cooperation with others for further development will greatly improved in the future.