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

Posted on:2014-05-16Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:H J YangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2297330431471094Subject:Subject teaching
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Cooperative Learning originated in the United States during the1920s; it was not untilthe1980s that its theory was accepted and applied in classroom teaching. Ever since CLTheory came to China in the1990s, middle schools in some provinces have conducted anumber of pilot projects. Currently, however, senior high school English classes are stilldominated by traditional ways of teaching. The CL pattern is not yet in wide application.According to Constructivism-based CL Theory and the related researches by Wan Tanand other experts, the author carried out an empirical study on Senior Grade One studentsat Suzhou Lumu Senior High School, where her two classes were chosen as researchsubjects with42students in each. Class8was assigned as experimental class, and Class9as control class. The experiment lasted one semester, approximately4months, duringwhich the student-centered CL teaching methods was tried in Class8. The whole class wasdivided into7teams and consisting of6members for each. The CL projects were carriedout every week, with different writing tasks assigned by the author and fulfilled by thestudents through team cooperation. In contrast, the conventional teacher-centeredteaching mode was still employed in Class9, with students finishing the task individuallyunder the given instructions.Conducted in the experiment were two Questionnaires, one on high school students’anxiety to English writing and the other on their employment of English writing strategies.The questionnaires were designed on the base of “Foreign Language Classroom AnxietyScale” by Horwitz (1986) and “Writing Strategy Questionnaire” by Petric (2003). Besides,two tests before and after the experiment were taken to see how CL affected students’writing ability. The research data collected from the tests and questionnaires were compared and analyzed via SPSS19.0, revealing that the application of CL Theory to theteaching of English writing can effectively lower students’ anxiety, help them betteremploy writing strategies and improve, considerably, their performance in the exams. Thesurvey and its finding may provide reference to enrich class cooperative patterns andovercome current difficulties encountered in the teaching of senior high English writing.
Keywords/Search Tags:cooperative learning theory, learning anxiety, writing strategy, seniorhigh school English, teaching of English writing
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