THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ACTIVITIES ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS WRITING SKILLS AT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI

Abstract

With the aim to explore the effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) activities on improving students’ perception and attitudes towards writing skills, the researcher employed two different teaching methods to teach two groups in 10 weeks: CL for experimental group and traditional method for control group. Traditional group learning method only puts students to sit and group without further assistance and careful structure to make group work become teamwork; whereas cooperative learning goes strictly with five elements including positive independence, individual accountability, quality group processing, explicit teaching of small group skills and teaching of social skills. A pre- and post- questionnaire were delivered to students at the beginning and the end of the experiment and the data was analyzed to find out to what extend each method affected students’ interest and perception about writing skill. Results from the analysis show that CL is an intriguing and effective way for students to learn writing skills. Learning in groups is generally more interesting and beneficial for their writing performance, especially for those steps like brainstorming ideas or editing essays.