| The ultimate goal of ELT(English Language Teaching)is to help learners acquire communicative competence.Yet,among the four abilities of English language,writing as one of the most important ways of communication has been a weak point for learners,especially for students of secondary specialized school.It has been found that there are many problems in the teaching of writing in secondary specialized school.Traditional teaching mode,students’ poor language knowledge,lack of interest in writing and passive participation are the main problems,which lead to low efficiency in the teaching of writing and students’ poor performance in writing.Jigsaw teaching technique is a way of cooperative learning,invented by Elliot Aronson in 1978.In Jigsaw class,the students are organized into “Home Groups”,each of which is made up of four to six members.Each member in a “Home Group” is responsible for a different part of the same material or task.The students from different“Home Groups” who are responsible for the same parts form “Expert Groups”,discussing the contents of their parts,then return to their “Home Groups” to teach the knowledge and information to the other members of the group.In this way,everyone takes responsibility for a piece of the “jigsaw”,and the results of experts’ discussion will soon spread throughout the whole class.At the end of the class,a quiz is given by the teacher and students’ learning is tested,evaluated and rewarded.In view of the common phenomenon of inefficiency in writing class in secondary specialized school,this research applies jigsaw technique to the teaching of English writing in secondary specialized school to improve the efficiency of writing class by enhancing students’ self-confidence and involvement in English writing.The purpose of this research is to explore the validity and feasibility of the application of jigsawteaching technique in the English writing class in secondary specialized school.The research questions are as follows:Question 1: How can Jigsaw teaching technique be implemented in English writing class?Question 2: How can Jigsaw teaching technique influence students’ involvement in writing?Question 3: What effects does Jigsaw teaching technique have on students’ writing ability?On the basis of studying the relevant literature at home and abroad,the researcher selected two natural classes(86 students)in Jiangyin secondary specialized school of Jiangsu Province to carry out the experiment lasting about 16 weeks,from September2016 to January 2017.Jigsaw teaching technique was implemented in the experimental class(Class One)while the traditional teaching method was conducted in the control class(Class Two).The instruments used in the research consist of a questionnaire,tests and an interview.The questionnaire intends to find out the differences of the students’ involvement in writing before and after the experiment.Pre-test and post-test are given to test the students’ English writing level.The interview tries to find out the students’ perception of and comment on jigsaw technique and the problems that exist in the jigsaw class.According to the collected data and analysis of the questionnaires,the tests and the interview,the results indicate that the students in the experimental class show much more interest and more significant improvement in English writing than the students in the control class.Therefore,jigsaw teaching technique proves to be effective to improve students’ involvement in writing and their ability of writing and is feasible to be supplied in English writing class in secondary specialized school.However,while implementing jigsaw teaching technique,the researcher also foundout various problems,such as low involvement of a few students,the phenomenon of delay caused by unreasonable class arrangement and disorder or friction in active participation and so on.At the end of the paper,some suggestions are given for avoiding the above problems.Besides,some limitations of the research and suggestions for further studies are also pointed out. |
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