The Application Of Cooperative Learning To The Teaching Of English Writing In Senior High School

With the rapid development of society and the global economy，English writing has beenincreasingly important communicative way in which people exchange information andexpress their thoughts and feelings. So, English writing is important in English learning. Theteaching aims of English in syllabus of China’s middle school state that the senior middleschool students must have certain skills about listening, speaking, reading and writing, amongwhich writing is the most difficult skill to develop. Thus, many serious problems exist in thecurrent teaching of English writing. Based on the belief that cooperative learning is moreeffective than traditional approaches in English writing classroom, this study was designed toadopt group writing for a further confirmation that cooperative learning is more effective inteaching English writing in Chinese middle school. Cooperative learning can be defined as arange of concepts and techniques for enhancing the value of student-student interaction.Cooperative learning, as a new teaching theory and model, is widely applied by manycountries in the world. It is a kind of pedagogical strategic system promoted by Slavin,Johnson et al in the1970s in America, which encourages students to perform all kinds oflearning activities in group or small team, emphasizes the learner-centered class, in which theteacher plays a role of director, cooperator, supervisor, attempts to enhance teacher-studentand student-student interactions and promotes students to learn sufficiently, enables studentsto work cooperatively. In cooperative learning students help each other to study somematerials and they can be rewarded for the achievements or performance of the entire group.Rewarding the group for the achievements of every group members reduces the pressure onthe students and enhances students’ initiative to finish assignments.In recent years, the researches of cooperative learning have attracted researchers. Theresearches home and abroad have got a great progress. In China, there have been a lot offindings about cooperative learning, but few about English writing teaching in senior highschool. However, this is a crucial period of the learning process, so in the present research, theapplication of cooperative learning to senior high school students is the theme. The subjectsare eighty students from Class One and Two, Grade Two, NO.43Senior High School inShijiazhuang City. Class One is experimental class, Class Two is control class. Cooperative learning is applied in Class One. This experiment lasts five months. The research instrumentsapplied in the study, are the pre-test, post-test, observation, questionnaires which are used toget some information about the teaching and learning of English writing and to see whetherthe cooperative learning is effective or not.The data collected from the experiments are analyzed after the experiment. Then aconclusion can be got that the application of cooperative learning to the teaching of Englishwriting in senior high school is more effective than traditional teaching. It can promote thestudents’ interest, confidence and the abilities of English writing. It encourages students tocooperate and work with each other. It also can give full play to students’ own advantages,entertain the imagination and inspire the creativity of students.And the author also becomes aware of some important ideas about teaching Englishwriting: The most valuable aspect of any teaching form is supposed to provide studentsopportunity to communicate and cooperate; the teacher should devote most of her energy toteaching students how to learn, encouraging them learning to write by writing; writingactivities must be authentic and practical to students, which can arouse their interest, provoketheir motivation and creativity.