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INTRODUCTION

1. RATIONALE

When we learn a foreign language, we learn to communicate with people in other

countries by talking to them or writing to them. However, there is a fact that not all of us

have lots of opportunities to meet foreigners directly so that they can listen to our words,

look at our guestures or facial expressions. As a result, it is common that writing becomes

a social endeavor, a way of communicating with others, informing them, persuading them

and debating with them.

But the fact that people usually have to communicate with each other in writing is

not the only reason to include writing as a part of our syllabus. The more important reason

is that writing can help our students to learn the language better since it gives them

chances to make use of grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that they have

learned.

Although writing plays a very important role in a foreign language learning, for

years of teaching writing skill, I have realized that my students have not been encouraged

enough to involve in the writing lessons and their writing skill has also been far from

satisfaction. As a teacher of writing skill, which is considered to be more boring and

challenging than the others, I am always eager for the suitable method of teaching so that I

do not have to force my learners to write; instead I can stimulate them to give out their

thoughts and write with interest.

Actually, what should be taken into consideration now is the way the knowledge is

presented. Although many writing methods have been used in classroom alternatively, not

all of them are effective enough to promote language acquisition. During the last decade, a

new approach called Cooperative Learning (CL) seemed to attract a lot of attention and

become popular.

Cooperative Learning is a pedagogical approach that enhances student – student

interaction via working in small groups to maximize their learning and reach their shared

goal. This type of learning approach is believed to decrease competitiveness and

individualism but increase opportunities to actively construct or transform the knowledge

among students. Furthermore, considerable research demonstrated that CL produces

higher achievement and more positive relationships among students. In short, CL is a

powerful educational approach for helping all students attain content standards and

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develop the interpersonal skills for succeeding. With these reasons, I desire to study

whether the CL method is really a remedy for the teaching and learning English writing

skill at Tay Bac University, where I have been teaching.

2. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY

This study was firstly aimed at examining the effectiveness of CL on improving

the students’ writing skill, changing their attitude towards writing, as well as fostering the

students’s engagement and participation in their writing lessons in the context of Tay Bac

University.

Secondly, it was expected to give some suggestions for improving writing skill of

students at Tay Bac University.

Last but not least, it was an attempt to serve as a useful source of reference for

teachers of English at the college.

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to find out the fact whether CL improves students’ writing proficiency

and motivates them to learn, this study was designed with the following questions:

How effective is the cooperative learning programme in helping the second year

English major students at Tay Bac University improve

(1) their writing proficiency?

(2) their attitude towards writing?

(3) their paticipation in in-class activities?.

Finally, the study also aimed at finding

(4) what the student’s opinions about cooperative learning are?

4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study was carried out on only the second-year students of English at Foreign

Language Department of Tay Bac University. These students were measured their writing

proficiency in correlation to the application of an experimental CL. It means that the study

was not supposed to measure the students’ general language proficiency but merely their

writing skill.

5. RESEARCH METHOD

The first method applied in this study is a quasi-experimental design which

involves the three components of experiments according to Selinger and Shohamy (1989):

the population (the second-year students at Tay Bac university), the treatment (cooperative

learning activities), and the measurement of the treatment (t-test).

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In addition, pre and post-questionnaires were delivered to students who took part

in the CL class as a supporting tool to obtain their change in attitude towards writing.

What is more, observation was also employed during the teaching time to recognize the

participation of students in the control group and the experimental group.

6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development which

consists of three chapters, and Conclusion.

The Introduction gives an overview of the study with the rationale for the

research, the aims, and the research hypothesis and research questions of the study. It also

narrows the scope, presents the research methods and outlines the content of the study.

The development includes three chapters:

Chapter one presents the literature review relevant to the study including

theoretical background of writing and cooperative learning.

Chapter two describes in details the research method used in the study with the

necessary components before supplying information about the procedures of collecting the

data. Then, the statistical results and the analysis of the collected data are shown.

Chapter three discusses the findings from statistical analysis and some

pedagogical implications.

The Conclusion presents a discussion of the major findings from which some

pedagogical implications were derived. It also provides some limitations and suggestions

for further study.

7. SUMMARY

The first part has given an overview of the study including the rationale, the

purposes as well as the research hypothesis and questions of the study. Also, all research

method employed to get data and the designs of the study have been presented. In the next

chapter, a theoretical framework for the study will be discussed.

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CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS OF WRITING

1.1.1. Definitions

Language educators have long used the concepts of four basic language skills:

listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among such four skills, writing is considered as

a productive skill in the written mode. Writing often seems to be the hardest of the skills,

even for native speakers of a language, since “it involves not just a graphic representation

of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way”

(Hampton, 1989). In his book, Hampton aslo stated more ideas about writing; that is

“writing skills are specific abilities which help writers put their thoughts into words in a

meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message.”

There are more thoughts expressed about writing by lots of different

methodologists. For example, according to Kellogg (2000), writing is “a major cognitive

challenge, because it is at once a test of memory, language, and thinking ability. It

demands rapid retrieval of domain-specific knowledge about the topic from long-term

memory.” From another view of writing, Murray and Perl (1979) defined writing as “a

creative discovery procedure characterized by the dynamic interplay of content and

language: the use of language to explore beyond the known content.” Moreover, in Byrne

(1988)’s opinion, “writing is much more than the production of graphic symbols, just as

speech is more than the production of sounds” because “the symbols have to be arranged,

according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form

sentences, then the sentences have been put in order and linked together to form a coherent

whole.”

The above definitions reflect unlike attitudes towards writing of the authors who

are under the control of different theories. However, in general, writing is a daunting task

for students because it requires the correctness of not only form but also meaning to get

the best communicative goals.

1.1.2. Role of Writing Skill in Foreign Language Learning

When people learn the way to write, not only are they developing a new skill, but

they also are “getting involved in an activity in which questions of social role, power, and

the appropriate use of language cannot be avoided” (Tribble, 1996). In addition, through

mastery of writing, individuals come to be fully effective in interllectual organization, in