A Study On The Application Of Student-student Cooperative Learning To English Writing In Senior Middle School

Nowadays,of the four English skills,listening,speaking,reading and writing,writing is not only important,but also difficult.In the traditional teaching class,many students lose interest in English writing,suffering from their low-efficacy and lack of study motivation.To improve students' self-efficacy and writing ability,and change their attitude toward English writing have become the focus of educators.Standards of new curriculum have put forward new requirements for the students,including creative ability,cooperative skill,awareness of independence and so on.Driven by the education reform,the traditional teaching method is supposed to be improved.As the cooperative learning has been applied in some junior and senior middle schools,the effects of cooperative learning become more obvious and favorable.A few specific teaching models have appeared in domestic researches.The Du Langkou teaching method is a good explanation of student-student cooperative learning.Most of the researches concentrated on the application of cooperative learning to vocabulary teaching,reading teaching,speaking teaching.Only a few studies focus on the applying of cooperative learning in English writing.There are four kinds of learning styles in cooperative learning: student-student cooperative learning,student-teacher cooperation,student-machine interaction and all members interaction.As one of the crucial activities of cooperative learning,student-student cooperative learning is a new way to be applied in the study on English writing in Senior Middle School.Based on the summary of the current research situation related to student-student cooperative learning and references to relevant literature,the author attempts to apply student-student cooperative learning to a senior high school and design a suitable teaching model.The experiment was carried out in Lushi NO.1 high school after the author's serious consideration.One hundred and one students from grade one of Lushi NO.1 Senior Middle School were chosen as experimental subjects.They studied in parallel classes equipped with the same teaching condition.Class 21 with 51 members was chosen as the EC and Class 22 with 50 members was selected as CC.The experiment lasted one semester and the research instrument of tests,questionnaire,interview were used to find out the existing problems of traditional teaching method and teaching effects of student-student cooperative learning in the improvement of students' self-efficacy and English writing ability.Research questions of this study are as follows:1)What are the problem of traditional teaching method in Senior Middle School student's English writing?2)What are the effects of student-student cooperative learning on improving student's self-efficacy and writing ability in the student-student cooperative learning?The research process is introduced briefly in the following part.Firstly,this experiment began from the September of 2018 and ended on January 15,2019,lasting for one semester.A pre-test was conducted in EC and CC to figure out whether they were qualified as experiment subjects.It is also helpful for the author to have a general understanding about subject's writing proficiency by the writing scores.In addition,the students of EC were asked to take the pre-questionnaire survey in order to know their current writing situation in the English writing class.Secondly,the author applied the student-student cooperative learning method to EC while the traditional teaching method was used in CC.During the writing process,the author divided the writing task into three stages: pre-class,while-class and after-class.Students collected writing material by themselves before the class.In class,they had a discussion in groups and finished the first draft in limited time.And then followed the peer feedback and group presentation.After class,the second draft was asked to be completed to internalize the knowledge.Before next class,the final draft was evaluated by the teacher.Thirdly,at the end of this semester,all students were asked to take a post-test in order to learn about the effects of the student-student cooperative learning in the improvement of English writing.And the post-questionnaire was conducted in EC to figure out the changes of student's writing in experimental class.In addition,five students were selected by the author randomly to take the interview to collect information about their feedback in the student-student cooperative learning.Finally,all the data of tests,questionnaire and interview were collected and analyzed by the SPSS software.The major findings of the research are as follows:1)There existed some problems in traditional English writing teaching.(1)The majority of students were not satisfied with their writing.(2)Many students suffered from low self-efficacy in English writing because of the traditional teaching.(3)The traditional teaching method neglected students' need in psychological and social relationship as well as the cooperation ability,which decrease students' motivation in the English learning.2)The effects of student-student cooperative learning in the student-student cooperative learning are obvious:(1)These students who studied in the student student cooperative learning class made great process after one semester's experiment.(2)According to the analysis of the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire of EC,most students had improved their self-efficacy and ability in English writing and they are more willing to do writing in cooperative atmosphere.So,the student-student cooperative learning is more effective than the traditional teaching method in the improvement of students' self-efficacy and writing ability in the English writing.