Integrating online cooperative learning into the English as a foreign language writing curriculum: a modelling trial
type: CreativeWork
description: Online learning has been reported to be increasingly used within Chinese higher education. The rapid expansion has created a problem that it’s difficult to carry out real-time learner interaction among a great number of students. The pure online instruction made the existing problems in university EFL teaching even worse, such as ‘teacher-centred’ instruction, student’s low learning motivation and low level of class participation. There is a need to develop pedagogies in EFL teaching in China to meet expanding demand and solve the problems. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the integration of cooperative learning (CL) into online EFL curriculum to facilitate learner interactions, bring about meaningful learning together and research its influence on learner writing proficiency. To be specific, it was to explore whether online cooperative learning (OCL) with elements of Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) could actually manifest during learning and teaching online and whether there may be initial evidence that OCL could be effective at raising EFL learners’ writing attainment. A researcher-designed online writing curriculum was delivered to 17 university students in nine weeks, once per week for 90 minutes each session. The course, named Step by Step University Writing Skills, was composed of 12 topics, aiming to develop learner’s skills of writing a sentence, writing a paragraph and writing an argumentative essay step by step. Learning tasks using CL techniques Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share (TPS), Random Reporter, Assigning group roles (AGR), were assigned in each session for the learners to practice the teaching contents in groups. The Questionnaire-Scale of ‘Learner Experience & Perception on Cooperative Learning’ was used to assess the learners’ prior knowledge of CL, their previous experience of CL and their attitudes toward CL before they took the OCL course. Learners’ writing proficiency tests were taken twice before and after the course as the pre-test and th…
abstract: Online learning has been reported to be increasingly used within Chinese higher education. The rapid expansion has created a problem that it’s difficult to carry out real-time learner interaction among a great number of students. The pure online instruction made the existing problems in university EFL teaching even worse, such as ‘teacher-centred’ instruction, student’s low learning motivation and low level of class participation. There is a need to develop pedagogies in EFL teaching in China to meet expanding demand and solve the problems. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the integration of cooperative learning (CL) into online EFL curriculum to facilitate learner interactions, bring about meaningful learning together and research its influence on learner writing proficiency. To be specific, it was to explore whether online cooperative learning (OCL) with elements of Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) could actually manifest during learning and teaching online and whether there may be initial evidence that OCL could be effective at raising EFL learners’ writing attainment. A researcher-designed online writing curriculum was delivered to 17 university students in nine weeks, once per week for 90 minutes each session. The course, named Step by Step University Writing Skills, was composed of 12 topics, aiming to develop learner’s skills of writing a sentence, writing a paragraph and writing an argumentative essay step by step. Learning tasks using CL techniques Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share (TPS), Random Reporter, Assigning group roles (AGR), were assigned in each session for the learners to practice the teaching contents in groups. The Questionnaire-Scale of ‘Learner Experience & Perception on Cooperative Learning’ was used to assess the learners’ prior knowledge of CL, their previous experience of CL and their attitudes toward CL before they took the OCL course. Learners’ writing proficiency tests were taken twice before and after the course as the pre-test and th…
author: Liu, Ying
language: eng
keywords: Cooperative learning, EFL pedagogy, online curriculum, learner interaction, social interdependence theory
date published: 2021-7
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:55:51Z
provider: Queen's University Belfast
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Queen's University Belfast