the effects of cooperative learning on efl learners’ writing motivation, writing anxiety and writing performance

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY --- THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING MOTIVATION, WRITING ANXIETY AND WRITING PERFORMANCE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING MOTIVATION, WRITING

ANXIETY AND WRITING PERFORMANCE

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Ho Chi Minh, 2018

Nguyen Thi Tuyet

ACKNOWLEDMENTS

This Master of Art in TESOL thesis is the result of a productive collaboration of all the people whom have compassionated contributed to my research Without the help of those, it would have been unable for me to complete my Master thesis

First and foremost, I would like to deeply thank to my supervisor, Dr Luu Trong Tuan Without his compassion, encouragement, understanding and guidance in every step throughout the process, this paper would have never accomplished

Getting through the dissertation required more than academic support, and I have many people

to thank for; however, these outstanding people wish their personal information to be kept confidentially Exceptionally, I sincerely thank my manager who had allowed me to conduct the current research at the research site, also to my colleagues who had shared their constructive opinions on my thesis Moreover, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the anonymous participants

no matter they contributed data to this thesis or not

Most importantly, none of this could have happened without my family I would like to express

my particular gratitude to my beloved mother Do Thi Dieu for her unconditional love, understanding, encouragement over time and distance Also, I am grateful to my husband Nguyen Minh Huy for his non-stop support not only in guiding me process obtained data but also his non-stop encouragement every time I was ready to quit This dissertation stands as a testament to both his and my great efforts

ABSTRACT

Writing in a foreign language is the most difficult skill to learn; consequently, teaching writing

is a true challenging experience to language teachers Recent studies in the field of language teaching indicated that pedagogical trends has shifted from teacher-centered to learner-centered; therefore, the use of Cooperative Learning has become popular worldwide However, Cooperative Learning were mainly implicated in Western contexts and there has been little studies conducted in Asian EFL contexts As the result, this study tried to fill the gap by examining effects of Cooperative Learning and traditional learning on EFL learners’ writing motivation, writing anxiety and writing performance

The subjects were 32 students in the Spring academic year 2018 at a private school in Vietnam The two-group participants were chosen and randomly assigned as a control group (14 subjects) and an experimental group (18 subjects) The control group studied writing through traditional learning of whole-class instruction; nevertheless, the Cooperative Learning instruction was employed in the experimental group Each group was instructed writing skills for 14 sessions; each sessions lasted 90 minutes The participants responded to four different instruments (2 questionnaires and two writing proficiency tests) in order to enable the researcher to prove the effects of Cooperative Learning on their writing skills

The findings indicated that both traditional learning and Cooperative Learning had improved the students’ writing ability Despite the fact that no significant difference was found in learners’ writing motivation, Cooperative Learning was proved to decrease the participants’ apprehension level Moreover, the resulting t-test of the experimental group’s post-test mean scores indicated a significant improvement in their writing composition including organization and content component Ultimately, several useful educational implications of this study for language associates were also discussed

Key words: Cooperative Learning, writing

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

ABBREVIATION ix

Chapter 1 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Rationale for the study 2

1.3 Research Questions 3

1.4 Significance of the study 4

1.5 Definition of terms 5

1.6 Organization of the study 6

Chapter 2 7

LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Learner-centered instruction vs Traditional Language Teaching 7

2.2 Cooperative Learning 8

2.2.1 Definitions of Cooperative Learning 8

2.2.2 Theoretical framework of Cooperative Learning strategy 9

2.2.2.1 The Vygotskian perspective 9

2.2.2.2 Bandura’s Social Learning theory 10

2.2.2.3 Summary 10

2.2.3 Elements of Cooperative Learning 11

2.2.3.1 Positive dependence 11

2.2.3.2 Individual accountability 11

2.2.3.3 Face-to-face interaction 11

2.2.3.4 Social skills 12

2.2.3.5 Group processing 12

2.2.5 Techniques 13

2.2.5.1 Jigsaw 13

2.2.5.2 Think-pair-share 13

2.2.5.3 Round Robin 13

2.2.5.4 Numbered Heads 13

2.2.5.5 Peer editing 14

2.2.6 Benefits of Cooperative Learning for language education 14

2.2.6.1 Social benefits 14

2.2.6.2 Academic benefits 14

2.2.6.3 Linguistic benefits 14

2.2.6.4 Affective benefits 14

2.3.1 Definition of writing 15

2.3.2 Definition of writing performance 15

2.3.3 Factors affect writing 17

2.3.3.1 Motivation 17

2.3.3.2 Anxiety 18

2.4 Relationships between Cooperative Learning and writing motivation, writing anxiety and writing performance 21

2.4.1 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing motivation 21

2.4.2 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing anxiety 22

2.4.3 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing performance in previous studies 22

Chapter 3 27

3.1 Setting 27

3.2 Selected subjects 27

3.2.1 Role of the researcher 27

3.2.2 Selection of writing examiners 28

3.2.3 Selection of students 28

3.3 Research design 30

3.3.1 Experimental group (EG) 30

3.3.2 Control group (CG) 30

3.4 Data collection 31

3.4.1 Instruments 31

3.4.1.1 Motivational questionnaire 31

3.4.1.2 Anxiety questionnaire 32

3.4.1.3 Pre and post writing test 34

3.4.1.4 Scoring rubrics 36

3.4.2 Data collection procedure 36

3.5 Data analysis 43

3.6 Conclusion 47

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 48

4.1 Analysis and findings of motivational questionnaires 48

4.2 Analysis and findings of anxiety questionnaires 50

4.3 Analysis and findings of pre and post writing tests 52

4.3.1 Pre-test 53

4.3.2 Post-test 55

4.3.3 Pre-test and Post-test writing findings 57

4.4 Conclusion and Interpretation 65

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 68

5.1 Conclusion 68

5.1 Pedagogical implications 68

5.1.1 Implications for language instructors 68

5.1.1.1 Cooperative group work 68

5.1.1.2 Necessary skills for Cooperative Learning 70

5.1.1.3 Recommend Cooperative Learning strategies in language teaching 71

5.1.2 Implications for language leaners 72

5.1.3 Implications for language institutions 72

5.2 Limitations 73

5.3 Directions for further research 74

REFERENCES 76

APPENDIX A 85

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 1 Relationships between variables 26

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

Figure 2 Grading procedure (scenario 1) 35Figure 3 Grading procedure (scenario 2) 36

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 4 Summary of CG Writing Performance 58Figure 5 Summary of EG Writing Performance 58

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

Table 3.1 Student Subjects 30

Table 3.2 Cheng’s (2004) Second Language Writing Anxiety Questionnaire 33

Table 3.3 Data Collection Timeline 39

Table 3.4 Research Questions, Data Collection and Data Analysis 43

Table 3.5 Reliability of Each Item of the Writing Motivational Questionnaire 45

Table 3.6 Reliability of Each Item of the Writing Anxiety Questionnaire 46

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics on the Writing Motivation of CG and EG before the Treatment 49

Table 4.2 Writing Motivation between CG and EG before the Treatment 49

Table 4.3 Writing Motivation between CG and EG after the Treatment 49

Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics on the Writing Anxiety of CG before the Treatment 50

Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics on the Writing Anxiety of EG before the Treatment 51

Table 4.6 Writing Anxiety between CG and EG before the Treatment 51

Table 4.7 Writing Anxiety between CG and EG after the Treatment 51

Table 4.8 CG Writing Performance Reliability Statistics 53

Table 4.9 EG Writing Performance Reliability Statistics 53

Table 4.10 The range of gained score on pre writing test of CG 53

Table 4.11 The Range of Gain Score on Pre Writing Test of EG 54

Table 4.12 Independent T-test for the Comparison of Pretest Results 55

Table 4.13 The Range of Gain Score on Post writing test of CG 55

Table 4.14 The Range of Gain Score on Post writing test of EG 56

Table 4.15 Independent T-test for the Comparison of Posttest Results 57

Table 4.16 Paired Sample T-test on the Writing components of CG 60

Table 4.17 Independent T-test for the Comparison of Organization Component 61

Table 4.18 Paired Sample T-test on the Writing components of EG 62

Table 4.19 Independent T-test for the Comparison of Content Component 63

Table 4.20 Independent T-test for the Comparison of Grammatical Structure Component 64

ABBREVIATION EFL: English as a Foreign Language

CEFR: Common European Framework for Reference

ZPD: Zone of Proximal Development

CG: Control Group

EG: Experimental Group

TESOL: Teaching English for Speakers of other Languages

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1.Background to the study

The learning of a foreign language includes four skills in a natural order of acquisition that are listening, speaking, reading and finally writing Generally agreed by different researchers, writing is a difficult skill to teach or learn Shibani et al (2017) assert writing is a key skill to learners of a language, but it is often a demanding skill Likewise, Mandal (2009) states that writing is one of the most challenging skills to acquire To compose a meaningful piece of writing, writers have to employ their active grammar, spelling, mechanic and vocabulary Moreover, generating ideas is an essential skill to help learners write interesting and worth-reading compositions (Forteza Fernández & Gunashekar, 2009) However, the fact is that a lack of interaction and understanding between the writer and the reader makes writing a problematic task

Writing is not only a tool for reflecting language learners’ proficiency level, but it also enables them another communicative means to express thoughts and feelings besides verbal communication (Ismail & Maasum, 2009) Therefore, learners are supposed to master this skill

to be an effective communicator in a language In contrast, they seem to show little interest to

it, and a great deal of them perceive writing as no more than a tool to test spelling and grammar (Carol, 1990) Silva (1993) insists the case becomes harder and less effective to writers if writing is conducted in a foreign language The writers might encounter hardship strategies lacking as well as affective factors including writing anxiety or motivation (as described in Lee, 2005; Chan 2009; Negari & Rezaabadi, 2012; Kassim, 2013; Kurniasih, 2017)

According to Li (2012), teachers’ beliefs directly influence their teaching practices including the roles they act, the activities they design and the interaction they expect in the learning process Language teachers are expected to choose appropriate pedagogical strategy upon certain contexts to help their learners overcome affective barriers and effectively acquire the target skill (Johnson and Johnson, 1994) A positive relationship between motivation and academic achievement is consolidated in previous studies Motivation has great impacts on learners’ language achievement (Chan, 2009) Likewise, Troia et al (2012) prove that motivation positively influences the quality of writing performance On the other hand, several

studies conclude that there is a negative relation between anxiety and language achievement (Pattanapichet & Changpueng, n.d.; Cheng, 2002) If leaners’ apprehension level is decreased, their language proficiency will be significantly improved (Nakahashi, 2007; Suwantarathip & Wichadee, 2010) Hence, it is undeniable that there is a necessity for an effective strategy that could increase language learners’ writing interest, possibly reduce writing apprehension and enhance their writing performance

Cooperative Learning is one of the sufficient strategies in education (Zakaria, Chin & Daud, 2010; Ning & Hornby, 2014) This concept refers to instructional methods and techniques in which learners are engaged in teamwork and supporting each other achieve a common goal Cooperative Learning is contradict to individualistic and competitive learning (Brown, 2000)

A competitive learning environment could reduce low-achievers’ motivation; meanwhile the cooperation between them would enable higher-achievers support the lowers Hence, their linguistic, cognitive and social development will be promoted (Johnson & Johnson, 1994) Numerous researchers have advocated this concept in language teaching particularly teaching

of writing skill For example, Baleghizadeh and Rahimi (2012) indicate the effects of Cooperative Learning on writing performance Not only achievement but also motivation were reported to be boosted in Hsieh’s study (2010) Besides that Kagan (1994), Wyeld (2013) and recently Jiang (2016) suggest anxiety is significantly reduced in a cooperative learning environment

1.2.Rationale for the study

With an effort of preparing Vietnamese students to become global citizens, Vietnamese government promotes English learning and teaching by launching Project 2020 (Ministry of Education and Training, 2005) This project aims to strengthen Vietnamese students’ intercultural communication, but also retain their cultural identity Common European Framework for Reference (CEFR) is chosen as the standard of evaluation, which corresponds Vietnamese EFL learners need to master four skills evenly Despite the fact of four necessary language skills, writing is not fully paid attention in schools of Vietnam due to dominance of form-focused instruction that emphasizes the acquisition of linguistic forms rather than communicative competence (Le, 2011) EFL writing in Vietnam has been considered a challenge for language teachers for a long time (Nguyen, 2009; Hoang, 2010) In addition, Vietnamese EFL writing teaching is described in Trinh and Nguyen’s paper (2014) as a one-way process, from the teacher to learners The learners play roles of “knowledge receivers and

imitators, without many pair work or group work activities” (p.65) Consequently, this teaching approach leads to their failure in writing ability unless the topic is similar to the one they had done previously The low quality of EFL writing teaching in Vietnam could be seen through results of the National High School Exam in 2015 (THANHNIEN, 2015) As reported, majority

of the candidates either skipped their writing section or did not have enough time to write

In addition, the researcher of the current study received lots of feedback of deficient motivation and anxious feeling encountered in writing process from her learners The same notions could

be found in other EFL teaching contexts For instance, Leila (2010) investigated second year EFL students’ attitude toward Cooperative Learning to shed a light for a more effective instruction Alghamdi and Gillies’s study in Saudi Arabia (2013), or Ahangari and Samadian’s

in Iran (2014) investigated the benefits of the Cooperarive Learning teaching approach to provide a solution to their EFL writing teaching They proved that Cooperative Learning was

an effective instruction Moerover, the learners showed positive attitudes toward this instruction The review of related literature on impressive effects of Cooperative Learning in language teaching and learning has led the researcher to the beliefs that this instruction may not only increase learners’ motivation in general but also for writing in particular, reduce anxiety in writing, and most importantly enhance writing performance

Therefore, the researcher made an attempt to conduct the current study with three following purposes Firstly, the research aimed to investigate the impacts of Cooperative Learning on EFL students’ motivation for writing The second purpose was to examine the influence aroused by Cooperative Learning on their writing anxiety The final purpose is to determine the effects of Cooperative Learning on writing performance by comparing compositions of EFL students who involved in Cooperative Learning and who received no Cooperative Learning instruction

1.3.Research Questions

In order to achieve the above purposes, three research questions were addressed in this study

R-Q 1: Are there any significant differences in writing motivation of Cooperative Learning

and traditional learning group?

R-Q 2: Are there any significant differences in writing anxiety of Cooperative Learning and

traditional learning group?

R-Q 3: Are there any significant differences in writing performance of Cooperative Learning

and traditional learning group?

Sub-question 1: Are there any significant differences in organization between compositions of Cooperative Learning and traditional learning group?

Sub-question 2: Are there any significant differences in content between compositions of Cooperative Learning and Traditional Learning writing group?

Sub-question 3: Are there any significant differences in grammatical structure between compositions of Cooperative Learning and Traditional Learning writing group?

1.4.Significance of the study

As discussed above, teaching writing has been a challenge to Vietnamese EFL teachers It results in Vietnamese high school students’ poor writing performance They could only imitate and perform on some familiar topics that were already taught by the teacher (Trinh & Nguyen, 2014) With the hope to improve EFL writing and teaching in Vietnam, some significance of the research were recorded:

1 Although there are numerous effects of Cooperative Learning found in EFL education

of other countries, there are not many studies in the literature of implementing this method on tertiary level in Vietnam This paper gave an answer to the question whether Cooperative Learning could flourish its effectiveness in Vietnamese EFL writing teaching as in other EFL contexts Therefore, it could draw attentions of Vietnamese EFL teachers to the existence of an effective strategy that makes their writing teaching

no longer a challenge

2 The exploration of this paper into effects of Cooperative Learning on EFL learners’ writing motivation and writing anxiety could benefit the teachers who are struggling to build interest and motivate their students in one of the most demanding skills – writing

3 The study is also significant to the Vietnamese EFL learners because they are able to develop their English writing skills by cooperation with friends rather than struggling with this process individually Their awareness of some cooperative skills would be raised, and their practices are expectly followed

4 The findings of this study contributed to the existing literature, and provided Vietnamese EFL teachers as well as the ones who obtain managing roles in an educational institution sophisticated evidence in making decision whether to apply

Cooperative Learning in their teaching context to promote their students’ writing performance

implemented in the writing learning of the experiemental group in this research

Traditional learning

Traditional learning methods relates to direct teaching or teaching techniques for the whole class Teachers who utilize whole-group instruction will transmit highly systematical knowledge content, orient learners’ activities and aim at academic chievement (Tran, 2012)

In the present research, the whole-class instruction was employed in the control group

Writing performance is ability to express ideas through written words It appears with a clear organization, topic-related content and appropriate use of grammatical structure (Forteza Fernández & and Gunashekar, 2009)

1.6.Organization of the study

The current study is divided into five chapters Chapter One includes the introduction, background to the research, the statement of the problems, the purpose of the study, the three research questions, significance of the study and also the definition of key terms Chapter Two presents a review of literature and research related to the topic of this paper comprising Learner-centered instruction, Traditional Language Teaching, Cooperative Learning, writing motivation, writing anxiety, and writing performance After that the context of the study (including setting, participants and materials) the role of the participant teachers and researcher, the research design, procedures of data collection, the treatment and the data analysis are presented in Chapter Three Chapter Four analyses both quantitative and qualitative results to confirm the hypothesis Finally, the last chapter presents a summary of the study, and provides implications, limitations of the study as well as recommendations for further research

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This section addresses the theoretical framework for the study It provides background on Cooperative Learning in terms of its theoretical perspectives, techniques and benefits in language education Moreover, it attempts to specify not only learners’ writing motivation but also writing anxiety and their relations with writing performance

2.1 Learner-centered instruction vs Traditional Language Teaching

Conti (2004) defined teaching style as the qualities delivered by a teacher consistently from situation to situation Traditional Language Teaching style, which focuses on teachers’ role in the classroom, has been gradually replaced by other teaching approaches However, Harmer (2005) admitted that it is still common in the foreign language contexts

The former teaching style, learner-centered, is described as a style of instruction that is active, cooperative and problem-centered in which both teachers and students involve in deciding how and when learning occurs (Dupin-Bryant, 2004) In addition, learner-centered instruction requires learners to actively engage and take the lead of their learning (Woods, 1996) Therefore, their learning would be more enjoyable and effective

On the other hand, teachers are orchestra leaders pouring knowledge to the students in the later style of teaching The students; hence, sit in rows passively listening to their instructor and

‘watching’ the language presented instead of learning through doing or experience (Harmer, 2005) Williams and Burden (1997) (as cited in Harmer, 2005, p 114) concluded that Traditional Language Teaching could bring several benefits to language learners For example,

in some situations, instructors are required to give instructions only; therefore, whole-class instruction will be more convenient for them Furthermore, this style of teaching would strengthen the students’ sense of belonging as their involvement in a same activity As a result, they would probably feel more secured

In spite of the positive effects, the drawbacks of this style of teaching attract more attention of the language educators Firstly, the process of transferring knowledge about a language would not enable effective learning and teaching The students’ autonomy and independence would

be gradually threatened by the passive listening Moreover, the lack of interaction between learners does not provide the students opportunity to practice their target language According

to Scrivener (1994), teacher’s talking time means the time that learners do nothing and are not involved That leads to the loosing of motivation for learning consequently Therefore, academic achievement may be affected

It is indisputable that there should be a shifting the focus in the classroom from teacher to students to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of language learning (William, 2003) However, this is such a long process that requires much effort and passion from the teachers They somehow go back to the traditional style of teaching

2.2 Cooperative Learning

2.2.1 Definitions of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning has been widely used in different fields of education and proved to have positive outcomes on student learning It is differently defined by various researchers Johnson

et al (1991) defined Cooperative Learning as the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning It is different from working in groups Remarkably, there is not an accepted common goal on which the group’s efforts are rewarded when doing group work, but there is when they cooperatively do In addition, Jacobs et al (2002) noted Cooperative Learning not only made students to finish the given task(s) as a group but also exploited some strategies that were able to escalate their interaction and learning Hence, it could improve their learning and engagement Slavin (2011) stated Cooperative Learning included pedagogical methods in which students were put in small groups, then worked together and helped each other learn the academic matter Although there are numerous definitions of Cooperative Learning, they both agree that cooperative learning environment only happens when students work in groups to achieve a common goal with the existence of these necessary elements namely positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, interpersonal & social skills and group processing (Johnson & Johnson, 2009) This is also chosen to conduct the present paper that guides the researcher in designing the learning activities Each of the element will be described in the following parts of this chapter

There are three main types of Cooperative Learning groups comprising informal, formal Cooperative Learning groups and cooperative based groups (Johnson & John, 2008) Firstly, informal Cooperative Learning groups are short-term orientation enduring from several minutes to one class time and involve learners in focused-pair discussions Meanwhile, formal Coopeartive Learning groups are longer which could last from one class period to several

weeks after Finally, cooperative based groups are the longest among three and very diverse in which students support each other to make progress throughout a semester or an academic year

In this study, the experiment lasted for seven-week of instruction; therefore, formal cooperative learning was employed

2.2.2 Theoretical framework of Cooperative Learning strategy

The study was based on the theories and the features of Vygotsky (1978) and Bandura (1983, 1986)

2.2.2.1.The Vygotskian perspective Meanwhile Piaget (1973) believed that a child was a scientist who explored and made sense of the world by himself or herself, Vygotsky (1978) indicated that it was incorrect to focus on a child in isolation He highlighted that the cognitive development occurred along with interactions and continuous assistance of others who were more knowledgeable Others here initially are family members, siblings or caretakers when the child has not gone to school, and later they could be teachers and friends Moreover, Vygotsky suggested the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) ZPD is the distance between what a child can do at the moment (‘current knowledge and understanding’) and what he or she can potentially achieve with the help of others (‘level of potential development’) The fact is that social interaction is the means to make the progress possible This might take place in the classroom through the activities of group,

or paired work or even in informal context at home, in a park or anywhere else

In Slavin’s Cooperative Learning definition (2011) (stated above), opportunities for learners to express their ideas, listen to their friends, discuss and argue with each other play an important role to ensure cooperative learning environment happened and student achievement enhanced Therefore, Vygotsky agreed with the principle of Cooperative Learning in which an interactive, cooperative and learner-centered classroom should be designed

As a result of this perspective, plenty implications could be drawn for the teaching and learning

of the treatment group with Cooperative Learning in this study Most importantly, the teacher should designed learning activities that are able to strengthen interactions and cooperation between learners When students work together, they work closely within their own and their friends’ levels of proximal development Thus, they would be able to perceive explanations more easily in comparison with the ones instructed by a person with a different mental age (Liao, 2006) In other words, learners will comprehend faster and more efficiently if explained

by friends rather than by their teacher or elders

As Cooperative Learning definitions promoted by Slavin (2011) and Jacobs et al (2002) stated previously in the research that stressed on the essence of both interaction and cooperation between learners, Vygotsky’s theory supports Cooperative Learning instruction in which the researcher attempts to maintain throughout the treatment process

2.2.2.2.Bandura’s Social Learning theory Todge and Winterhoff (1993) distinctly compared theory of Vygotsky and Bandura Even though there are significant differences between them, the two scholars share certain intellectual foundations that contend development occurs in contexts Likewise, they drive to the same goal – to understand development Bandura had developed many remarkable beliefs that are still applied in today education In his social learning theory (Bandura & Walter, 1963), Bandura suggested that learning happened through social imitation and observation of others’ behavior Moreover, that is not a passive process, but extremely active ‘Social’ here does not cover entire society around the learners, but it is a learning community “where a larger group will work together as a society, not only share knowledge and understanding, but operate with the same set of judgments and values” (Murphy, Mufti & Kassem, 2009, p 93) Hence, learners will be a part of a community that not only makes learning happen but also provides more opportunities to acquire new things Clearly, when participating in society there are roles for everyone

Therefore, to apply this theory into teaching, besides providing essential models to activate learners’ observation then imitating and finally learn from that, educators need to consider individual abilities when putting them in groups and roles they should perform in order to construct an effective cooperative learning lesson

Furthermore, Bandura (1986) emphasized modeling of cooperation using Cooperative Learning would not develop learners’ ZPD unless it took place over an extended period In agreement with Bandura, the researcher chose to implement the study for seven weeks in length

2.2.2.3.Summary

In conclusion, two above theorists including Vygotsky and Bandura supports Cooperative Learning Therefore, to increase learners’ writing motivation, performance, and reducing anxiety the researcher strictly follows three following matters in the cooperative learning group

of students Firstly, the cooperative learning classroom environment will be engaging and

carefully designed and prepared to maximize learners’ interaction and cooperation Finally, vital models are given to stimulate learners’ observation and development gradually In another words, they are also keys elements of Cooperative Learning

2.2.3 Elements of Cooperative Learning

According to Johnson and Johnson (2009), there are five elements of Cooperative Learning that help students to increase their achievement as follows:

2.2.3.1 Positive dependence Positive dependence is considered one of the most important elements that distinguishes Cooperative Learning from traditional group work (Johnson et al, 1991) Positive dependence exists when students work together toward a same goal and care about learning of each other

It means every member is required to devote to his or her group’s success Moreover, he or she

is responsible for helping each other understand the task and achieve their common goal Similarly, Slavin (1995) agrees that it is deficient to think Cooperative Learning only puts students in groups In cooperative classrooms, students work closely to ZPD of each other, care about achievement of their group’s members seriously Their group’s success depends on all members’ success That produces positive dependence This element does not exist when any member in a group do not contribute to groupwork, but still get scores (Cohen, 1994) Hence, without positive dependence, students’ participation rate is not high

2.2.3.2.Individual accountability The second crucial element of Cooperative Learming is individual accountability It calls for each member’s responsibility and his or her active role in the group Bandura’s social learning theory described above advocated this element When every student has a different role in a group, they try to learn and acquire new things to achieve the role (Murphy, Mufti & Kassem, 2009) In addition, they believes that their contribution is essential to the group (Kagan, 1994) Hence, the group work’s quality is important to them so that they listen to each other and negotiate to have a better answers or solution for the problems

2.2.3.3 Face-to-face interaction Face-to-face interaction is the third element Cooperative Learning involves putting students

in small groups and helping each other learn the content knowledge (Slavin, 2011) Obviously, working in pairs or groups provides students more opportunities to interact in the target language (Kagan, 1994) For example, when a teacher uses traditional teacher-centered approach, the interactions happen between teacher and students or sometimes student to

teacher On the contrary, if working in groups of four, the interaction patterns will be extremely diverse (teacher-students, student-students, student-teacher, and students-teacher); hence, the student talking-time is intensively four times increased

2.2.3.4 Social skills Students learning with Cooperative Learning should be equipped social skills that refer to group-related and task-related skills (Luu, 2010) The former skills include the way in which students communicate with their teammates, also how they motivate each other to achieve the common goal, and how they negotiate or resolve the argument The latter skills refer to the skills students need for supporting each other such as questioning, persuading, simplifying the language to weaker members, or summarizing to finalize group’s ideas

2.2.3.5 Group processing Group processing is the reflection on how effectively the group works together (Johnson & Johnson, 1994) It could be what went well and what should be improved After that, some decisions will be determined in order to improve the whole group’s later performance To promote this final element, cooperative learning teachers could spend some time after the class

or right after the students work together to do the reflection It is advised to have a group evaluation form with specific criteria to guide students and prevent arguments

2.2.4 Teacher’s role in promoting effective Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning with five key elements has shifted the focus in the classroom from teachers to learners, but it does not imply that teachers are able to sit and do nothing (Crandal, 1990) They must continually provide instructions, monitor students’ activities and promote necessary Cooperative Learning elements to help their learners achieve objectives of the lessons or tasks In other words, infusion of Cooperative Learning in teaching does not mean students work together in every task or activity Teachers need to decide how and when to use Cooprative Learning to appropriately benefit the learning process Hence, sometimes class activities could be cooperatively done, sometimes individually or even competitively designed (Johnson and Johnson, 1994)

According to Johnson and Johnson (1988), cooperative learning teachers should follow these five recommendations Firstly, learning objectives of each lesson should be carefully determined by teachers Teachers are recommended to put students into different groups before each activity or task so that they know clearly whom they are going to work with Thirdly,

and probably do not need teacher’s frequent support, instructors are highly advised to constantly monitor and keep students on-task or possibly intervene to assist if there are any problems or conflicts Finally, these two brothers suggest teachers to evaluate the achievement

of the students and provide them constructive feedbacks

In addition, the following section reviews some of Cooperative Learing techniques that are hopeful to help teachers structure successful cooperative language lessons

2.2.5 Techniques

Although there are numerous techniques of Cooperative Learning for language education, the researcher aims to review some, which specifically enhance writing skills in the process of planning, drafting and reviewing More importantly, they are potentially applied in the current study context

2.2.5.1.Jigsaw Teams are firstly formed then representatives from each team gather with the ones who have the same topic in different tables to discuss important concepts and decide the best ways to teach their original teammates After “the experts” complete the discussion, they return to their own table and teach the others (Mandal, 2009)

2.2.5.2.Think-pair-share This technique is quick and simply to applied It is also highlighted as one of the significant features of Cooperative Learning (Kagan, 1994) To put it into practice, teacher poses questions, allows students some minutes to think of their answers then asks them to talk to their partner and share ideas This activity encourages students to contrast and reflect their understanding in a very low-risk situation

2.2.5.3.Round Robin

“It is primarily a brainstorming technique, in which students generate ideas but do not elaborate, explain, evaluate, or question the ideas” (Mandal, 2009, p.20) Students work in groups, and soon after alternately share their thoughts about the topics This technique involves all students in, because the following speaker cannot start unless the previous one finishes Besides, it helps generating students’ ideas, which is an important purpose of pre-writing activities As the result, students may have positive and confident attitude toward the topic

2.2.5.4.Numbered Heads

A group of four students is established Each member is given a number from 1 to 4 Groups receive a question from teacher and work together to answer After that, the teacher calls a number at random, and students with that number are invited to answer the question and earn points for their groups This technique is a strategy developed by Kagan (1989) (as stated in Luu, 2010) using a content-free way of managing classroom interation

2.2.5.5.Peer editing Editing often appears at the last stage of the writing process With this technique, students could

be asked to do pair works or group works revising and giving each other comments on their writing drafts The focus of editing activities should be clearly stated for students to understand what the teacher is looking for After that, they will write another draft in combination with their friends’ suggestions or corrections This activity not only ensures a better quality of writing in comparing to only one-draft writing but also reduces marking load for teachers

2.2.6 Benefits of Cooperative Learning for language education

2.2.6.1.Social benefits Gillies (2003) concludes that the cooperation between learners is much better than the competition Working in a small group, students learn much from their peers and teammates The higher achievers could guide and help the lower ones who may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable with teacher’s support Gradually, students’ communication and social skills are built throughout the activities that they frequently experience in Cooperative Learning such

as explaining instruction, presenting, and dealing with debates or leadership These skills are vital to prepare learners for their future in the twenty-first century that requires a citizen works not only well individually but also effectively in a team environment

2.2.6.2.Academic benefits Cooperative Learning is reported to enhance both attitudes to learning and academic achievement Cohen (1994) and Kagan (1994) stated that Cooperative Learning promoted academic achievement across the curriculum Moreover, an increasing comprehension in the subject matter was reported in Stevens and Slavin’s work (1995)

2.2.6.3.Linguistic benefits Face-to-face element of Cooperative Learning brings students more yields to practice the language (Winget, 1988) In addition, the quality of the student-talk will be improved as they frequently expose to the language through interaction with peers or doing presentation

A relaxing atmosphere will be established in Cooperative Learning classroom Accoding to Cohen and Willis (1985), learners respect and feel connected to one another Slavin and Karweit (1981) confirmed that Cooperative Learning environment reduced anxiety, so students’ self-confidence was strengthened as the attention now was shifted from an individual

to the whole group Thus, it was safer to make mistakes or raise ideas

2.3 Writing

2.3.1 Definition of writing

Writing is an act happens within a specific context in which a clear purpose has been set for its predetermined audience (Hamp-Lyons & Kroll, 1997) Therefore, writing does not stop at an individual product, but it has become a social and cultural performance Writing activity involves goal setting, planning, memory retrieval, problem solving and evaluation That is why this skill is usually chosen to teach last among four skills in any languages due to their levels

of difficulty and complexity

However, as stated above in the introduction, this process in another language that is not writers’ mother tongue becomes more demanding Silva (1993) stated that writers would possibly encounter more difficulties and less efficiency in their second language writing than first language writing To be more precise, the writers are likely to revise less, also write less fluently and inaccurately

2.3.2 Definition of writing performance

Forteza Fernández and Gunashekar (2009) insisted that writing performance referred to students’ ability to effectively convey ideas into written words Besides, writing performance was defined as the results of writer’s ideas on a specific topic It appears with a clear organization, topic-related content, appropriate use of grammatical structure Audience is also taken into consideration to choose a suitable style

To determine the effects of Cooperative Learning on students’ writing performance, it is necessary to measure changes in students’ essays throughout the treatment Paulus’s essay scoring rubric (Paulus, (1999) see Appendix I) seemed to be the most appropriate to this research because of the following reasons Firstly, Paulus’s study was conducted on pre-university students in America that had similar participants’ characteristics with the current study It aimed to determine whether undergraduate ESL students would improve their writing through peer-editing practicing After completing the first draft, participants received

suggestions from their friends Accordingly, they would submit a second draft after revising process to get their teacher’s feedback It was proved that both kinds of feedback from friends and teacher improved the students’ writing The experimental students in the current research were also asked to generate two different drafts to get both kinds of feedback mentioned previously

Moreover, Paulus’s essay scoring rubric was developed from the rubrics in the Michigan English Language Assessment Battery She modified the writing categories namely organization, development, cohesion/ coherence, structure, vocabulary and mechanics Her rubric allowed analytical assessment starting from 1 as the lowest to 10 as the highest Therefore, the markers would be advantageous in referring either students’ overall scores or any local aspects of their writing It was not only successfully used to evaluate students’ essays

in her own research, but also widely employed in different studies such as Lunstrom and Baker (2009) and Grami (2010) which assessed students’ 30-minute essays

Likewise, because the appropriate aspects of the students’ performance that the rubric evaluates, the researcher decided to adapt it to assess the learners’ essays with three following aspects: organization, content (or ideas development), and grammatical structure (how the grammar and sentence structures are utilized throughout the writing)

 Organization

According to Paulus (1999), organization of a piece of writing is the unity of the ideas and of the entire paragraphs Writers must possess abilities to keep essay format (introduction, body and conclusion) under control with appropriate paragraphing, and topic sentences In addition, all the sentences in the essay must support controlling ideas in the thesis statement

 Content

Content or ideas development refers to the appropriate use of examples, evidence and supporting details in every point of the essay They should be well-developped with logical, appropriate and highly convincing Each section of the essay should have concreteness and effectively support each other

2.3.3 Factors affect writing

2.3.3.1 Motivation

a Definition of motivation

Learning motivation is described as a tendency of finding intellectual activities beneficial and trying to obtain the advantages from them (Brophy, 1988) In addition, motivation is an internal process that one’s behavior is activated, guided and maintained over time (Baron, 2002) Therefore, a motivated learner will find their own way to engage themselves in the environment

of learning

Writing motivation is one’s activation or energizing to give more effort to writing activity It relates to one’s attitudes toward the relationship between writing activity and writing outcome (Mayberry, 2008)

b Types of motivation

Cognitive psychologists suggest there are two major types of motivation They are intrinsic,

and extrinsic motivation Firstly, intrinsic motivation refers to the willing to engage in activities

for pleasure and enjoyment The following example will illustrate this point more clearly If a pianist is intrinsically provoked to play his instrument, he will not expect any rewards in return

to make himself spend time practicing (Brown, 2000)

On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is generated by external prompts, which could be

rewards or punishments In comparison with previous type of motivation, Kamaravadivelu (2006) indicated that this type of motivation allied with lower self-esteem and higher level of apprehension People who are extrinsically motivated may find the interest in the work in short term

A notion of achievement motivation is mentioned in Kumaravadivelu (2006) He explained a

student who is achievement motivated would try to utilize his or her fullest potential to achieve the standards of excellence Nevertheless, it is possible to this type under the umbrella of extrinsic motivation as they both come from external sources

Although intrinsic forms produce more positive results, both two main types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, influence the language development in different degrees depending on individual characteristics, interest, and pedagogic contexts

c Relationship between motivation and writing

Generally, Chan (2009) indicated that there was an apparent relation between motivation and language achievement among the participants in sixth-form College in Hong Kong Comparing students who were intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, his study further suggested that students who possessed both intrinsic and extrinsic orientation had better English performance than those who were mainly extrinsically motivated Gardner (1985) agreed that motivation had great effect on students' performance in the target language

Pajares (1996) believed that motivation was a crucial factor in writing ability Students without motivation would be reluctant to involve in the writing activities Especially, they may experience high level of writing anxiety, low productivity, and probably low self-confidence

in writing Likewise, Grabe and Kaplan (1996) determined possible external motivators that influenced writing such as grades, proficiency, future job, etc

In addition, after examining 618 children and teenagers in grades 4 to 10, but not including grade 8, Troia et al (2012) concluded that motivation positively influenced their quality of writing performance In-line with previous studies, study of Kassim et al (2013) indicated that motivation had a remarkable impact on both performance and achievement

As stated in Yavuz-Erkan (2004), he developed a scale to investigate writing motivation of 150 graduate and 353 undergraduate EFL students in a center for Foreign Language at YADIM The scale included 21 items in which 15 items were to grade participants’ belief in their writing ability and the other 6 items were to identify the participants’ anxiety level and causes of anxiety Quatitative data had led Yavuz-Erkan to the conclusion that students who were more motivated would experience lower level of anxiety and were likely to perform better in their academic achievement Hence, there are two reasons that made the researcher adapted Yavuz-Erkan’s (2004) instrument in her current study Firstly, the scale was used to measure writing motivation of the respondents whose characteristics were similar to the current paper Furthermore, it was successful employed by several researchers such as Sarkhoush (2013) and Kirmizi and Kirmizi (2015)

Concisely, a positive correlative relationship between learners’ motivation and writing performance was shown in previous studies

2.3.3.2.Anxiety

a Definition of anxiety

Language anxiety is characterized as a type of fear that learners experience when learning or articulating second or foreign language It refers to self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behavior in the process of learning a new language (Horwitz & Young, 1991)

Writing anxiety is defined as an inability to write as the writer cannot focus on the writing process itself, but worried too much about the results (Thompson, 1980) Tsui (1996) asserted that it was more anxious to write in a foreign language since most writing classes were product-oriented which expected a great deal of students’ effort putting their own thinking and ideas

by debilitating anxiety

According to Cheng (2004), this negative type of anxiety included three smaller dimensions namely somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety and avoidance behavior

Somatic anxiety

Somatic anxiety refers to physiological effects of anxiety If a writer experiences this type, he

or she will probably encounter nervous, tense or even trembling feeling during the writing process

Cognitive anxiety

Cognitive anxiety relates to the mental aspect of anxiety that could be writers’ concern about others’ perceptions toward their writing, their own negative expectations and preoccupation

with the performance In other words, this type makes the writers worry about their readers’ judgment Furthermore, they overthink before starting and somehow believe their performance will be in poor quality

Avoidance behavior

Writers at least put efforts to finish the compositions if they experience the other types of anxiety However, this final dimension of anxiety will prevent them from the writing It means they are likely to avoid, refuse or resist writing

This current research aims to investigate the effects of Cooperative Learning on writing performance with the hope to reduce the debilitating type in EFL learners’ writing process Therefore, instead of focusing on both types of anxiety this paper only addresses debilitating one using Cheng’s (2004) writing anxiety scale

c Relationship between anxiety and writing

Several studies (could be found in Saguanpong (2007); Yu-ching & Wu (2004); and Kondo & Yang (2003)) revealed that anxiety and achievement in language learning were negatively correlated as stated in Pattanapichet and Changpueng (n.d.)

Some research has demonstrated quality of writing is influenced by writing anxiety or writing apprehension Kean et al (1987) (as cited in Madigan et al, 1996) described there was a variation in the quality of writing produced by apprehensive and non-apprehensive writers

In addition, anxious feeling leads to refraining writing tasks, particularly when learners know

it will be graded (Daly & Hailey, 1984) Students may choose to skip the given writing work

or not present on the days when they know writing will certainly required to avoid writing as much as possible

Cheng (2002) noted that students with high anxiety hesitated joining writing classes and favored jobs without writing Students with writing anxiety were reported to not regularly attend the classes during writing courses More than that, they preferred writing to be done at home when there was someone to help or write for them instead of being done in the classroom They also had lower self-confidence, and self-esteem

In her later study in 2004, Cheng developed a foreign language writing anxiety scale to measure the effects of writing anxiety on the writing process and writers’ behaviors It was tested and

evaluated on sixty-five Taiwannese EFL students to prove its validity and reliability The findings revealed that there was a negative relationship between writing anxiety and writing performance primarily due to the cognitive components rather than somatic components or avoidance behavior

In line with above researchers, Kurniasih (2017) indicated that there was a noticeable correlation between writing performance and writing anxiety The more nervous the students felt, the poorer pieces of writing they were likely to produce In contrast, Negari and Rezaabadi (2012), who studied the relationship between writing performance and writing anxiety, oppositely confirmed in their paper The two authors claimed that students’ writing grades were higher when they experienced higher anxiety Facilitating anxiety is the type that has positive impacts on leaners’ performance (Shipman & Shipman, 1985) The findings of these studies proposed that a correlation, either positive or negative, existed between writing anxiety and writing performance Therefore, it is worth determining that correlation in the teaching context

of Vietnam to contribute to the students’ writing performance

2.4 Relationships between Cooperative Learning and writing motivation, writing anxiety and writing performance

The researcher reviewed some related studies firstly to understand the relationships between variables, and secondly to draw the hypotheses for the current paper

2.4.1 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing motivation

Ning and Hornby’s study (2014) revealed that levels of intrinsic and achievement motivation

of learners participating in Cooperative Learning programs were greater than who receive whole-class instruction Moreover, a quasi-experimental study carried by Zakaria, Chin and Daud, (2010) in Malaysia indicated that participants who participated in Cooperative Learning were undoubtedly perceived the subject matter in a more positive way Participants were also more actively engaged in their learning than those who did not The similar notion was found

in Peterson and Miller (2004)

Similarly, students exhibited more positive motivation after the implementation of Cooperative Learning in Quinn’s research (2006) Moreover, it was proved that female students improved their achievement motivation in Cooperative Learning classes (Wang, 2012)

There were numerous positive results of Cooperative Learning on writing motivation Thus, the first hypothesis is drawn to the recent research: “Cooperative Learning may increase learners’ motivation for writing in comparison to traditional teaching method.”

2.4.2 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing anxiety

By creating a non-threatening and supportive environment, Nakahashi (2007) proved that learners’ anxiety was reduced and language proficiency was significantly improved Moreover, anxiety and specially language anxiety were remarkably reduced after the treatment with Cooperative Learning in Suwantarathip and Wichadee’s study (2010)

Working in small groups, which is one of the crucial elements of Cooperative Learning, is demonstrated to make students feel less anxious (Kagan, 1994) Likewise, various researchers agreed that Cooperative Learning environment eased the anxiety (Wyeld, 2013; Pattanapichet and Changpueng, n.d.) Remarkably, the same finding was also revealed in the most recent research of Jiang (2016)

Advantages of Coopearative Learning on writing anxiety are undeniable However, some learners of Cooperative Learning “would still suffer from anxiety as there is no where to ‘hide’

in the [Cooperative Learning] group” while a whole-class instruction allows “an anxious student can perhaps sit at the back and listen” (Lin, 2009, p.31) Hence, it is questionable that whether Cooperative Learning reduces learners’ writing anxiety in comparing with whole-class instruction

From this line of argument, the second hypothesis is as follow “Cooperative Learning may decrease learners’ writing anxiety in comparison to traditional teaching method.” in order to fill in the gap of the literature and provide language instructors persuasive evidience to utilize Cooperative Learning in their teaching with the aim of reducing learners’ deliberating anxiety during writing process

2.4.3 Relationship between Cooperative Learning and writing performance in

previous studies

To give a strong hint of what tendency of research about Cooperative Learning effects on foreign language learning and teaching, a summary of previous studies is conducted in this section It firstly aims to present an overall picture of research trend in the language field, and then the research gaps initialing the present study will be highlighted

Cooperative Learning was proved to have positive impacts on different fields of learning such

as reading (Pan & Wu, 2013; Ghaith, 2003), speaking (Lin, 2009) and grammar achievement

in Ghorbani and Nezamoshari’e (2012) This section; therefore, points out the relationship of Cooperative Learning and language education with an emphasis on writing skills particularly Leila (2010) conducted a quantitative study on second year EFL students at Constantine University Through two instruments that were two questionnaires - one for teachers and the other for the students, he examined the teachers’ awareness of Cooperative Learning effects and the students’ perception to group work An analysis of teachers’ questionnaire indicated that the teacher participants not only concerned the affective side of their students but also ambition to generate an interesting learning environment Moreover, student participants’ questionnaire results revealed that they had positive attitudes towards Cooperative Learning Alghamdi & Gillies (2013) attempted to identify the effects of Cooperative Learning on the EFL learners’ achievements 139 tenth grade male students from 14-15 years old were chosen from four different secondary schools in Albaha city to join in an experimental research Schools were randomly assigned to be experimental groups who were taught English with the infusion of Cooperative Learning and control groups who received traditional small group method Similar to the current study both groups of students involved in pre- and post-writing tests then the essays were collected and analyzed The results indicated that participants in both groups possessed the same background knowledge of grammar items before the treatment However, students’ achievement was improved in the experimental groups with the cooperation of cooperative learning environment

Alligned with other research’s findings, Shi (1998) determined to investigate whether peer-talk occurred in pre-writing stage were able to help ESL students to produce essays with better quality than discussions led by teacher Students who involved in the method of peer-talk during the pre-writing stage produced longer essays with better verb use in comparison with their own writing before the study In constrast, the other group of students instructed by teacher-led talk in the pre-writing stage wrote shorter essays In addition, various ideas and varieties of word use were found in the former group of students

Many researchers have studied the effects of Cooperative Learning in improving language learners’ writing skills Storch (2005) compared the writing written by students who working

in pairs and the texts produced individually in an Australian university The participants were examined in four weeks The students who involved in working in pairs were asked to record

their conversations meanwhile writing The other who worked individually were interviewed

to obtain further data on their experience There were two main findings in Storch’s study Firstly, although spending much time to finish the compositions, the students who worked together delivered shorter texts in comparison to the students who worked individually Moreover, the former participants produced better grammar and more complex sentence in their performance In another study done two years after, Storch also concluded that there were differences in various aspects of participants’ writing including accuracy, fluency and complexity of the structure use (Storch, 2007) Storch’s previous studies were relevant to this current paper because they analyzed the difference in compositions of students who receive pairs or groups instruction and those who receive teacher-centered style of instruction in terms

of accuracy and complexity of sentence structure

In addition, learners’ motivation and achievement were signified to be upgraded by Cooperative Learning in an action research on writing performance Exceptionally, the EG of students believed their writing performances were boosted (Hsieh, 2010) Ismail and Maasum’s study (n.d.) also concluded that participants performed better in posttest in comparison with the pretest after the Cooperative Learning treatment

Likewise, Baleghizadeh, and Rahimi (2012) conducted a study with control and experimental

group involving 60 upper-intermediate learners to determine the effects of Cooperative

Learning on writing skill Participants in CG individually worked on their final product; meanwhile, the EG were able to use Cooperative Learning strategies Finally, the posttest scores of both groups proved that experimental students had better performance than the control ones

Ahangari and Samadian (2014) had an investigation on 30 learners’ writing performance in Iran The participants were randomly distributed to control and experimental group that took a pre-test and post-test in writing The experimental group’s writing performance was improved not only in three components analyzed in this current paper namely organization, content and grammatical structure but also the others composing vocabulary, language use and mechanics Moreover, the language teachers noted enjoyable learning atmosphere in the class with Cooperative Learning instruction

Similarly, participants in Mariam and Napisah (2005) were proved to write more accurate and creative compositions due to a great amount of peer interaction that Cooperative Learning

brought to the writing class Generating ideas and constructing sentences with peers led to a better understanding of the topic that participants were writing about Hence, they were able to provide concrete ideas with persuasive evidence, and their sentence structures were clearly strengthened

All the above findings share the same notion that Cooperative Learning positively influences learners’ writing performance However, they are mostly conducted in Western coutnrires This line of argument leads to the following hypothesis that expects positive effects of Cooperative Learning in an Asian context – Vietnam: “Cooperative Learning may positively influence learners’ writing performance in comparison to traditional teaching method”

For those reasons, the researcher decides to carry the present study, which applies Cooperative Learning to o increase EFL learners’ motivation for writing and expectantly reduce their writing anxiety She hopes to contribute to the literature, which brings language teachers more evidence and confidence in finding solutions for their learners’ problems with writing – one of the most difficult skills to teach or learn

2.5 Hypotheses

In sum, the current study is framed by the concept of Cooperative Learning introduced by Johnson and Johnson (2009) from the University of Minnesota and employ some Cooperative Learning techniques introduced by Kagan (1994)

Through social interactions and continuous assistance when working together with friends, leaners are able to acquire academic matters faster and more effectively (Vygotsky, 1978) than when they work with an adult In addition, learners feel safer and motivated to make mistakes

or raise ideas Hence, they will be engaged and promoted to take initiatives in their learning This line of argument leads to the first hypothesis:

H1: Cooperative Learning may increase learners’ motivation for writing in comparison to

traditional teaching method

Social learning theory of Bandura (1963) suggested that learning only happens through social imitation and observations of others’ behavior Therefore, it is important to provide essential models to activate students’ active observation then imitation Moreover, the roles that learners obtain when working with friends to achieve the learning goals give them a sense of belonging

which may reduce their anxiety in the learning process Therefore, the second hypothesis is as follow:

H2: Cooperative Learning may decrease learners’ writing anxiety in comparison to traditional

teaching method

Supported by both Vygotsky and Bandura’s theories, Cooperative Learning, which requires learners’ active participation in the learning process, has been proved to enhance their academic achievement It also supports the third hypothesis

H3: Cooperative Learning may positively influence learners’ writing performance in

comparison to traditional teaching method

Concisely, all the relationships between variables and the hypotheses are summarized in this model (Figure 2.1):

Figure 1 Relationships between variables

H1 (+) H2 (-)

H3 (+)

Cooperative

Learning

Learners’ writing motivation

Learners’ writing performance Learners’ writing anxiety

 Organization

 Content

 Grammatical Structure

Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to discuss the methodology employed in the study Firstly, the setting of the research is described After that, characteristics of the participants are presented in detail The research design is also discussed in the third section The fourth section focuses on data collection including instruments, data collection procedures such as validity and reliability Finally, a detailed description of data analysis methods and the pilot study are provided

3.1.Setting

The research site was a medium-sized private school located in Binh Duong province in the South of Vietnam The school belongs to a bigger corporation head mastered in Singapore It attracted students from kindergarten to university foundation level After high school graduation, students were able to proceed on their university learning in the same system in Singapore Therefore, English for University program was also available at the research site from elementary to advanced level in order to prepare its students for their future learning that

is totally in English Any students who enrolled in this program was required to take an entrance English test to ensure that they were competent enough to follow the major programs There were two typical cases: if the students passed the English entrance test, they immediately proceeded to their major studying Nevertheless, if the results were not good enough, they would be classified to different levels in English for University program from level 1 to level

5 including four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Each level lasted for seven weeks with two sessions of ninety minutes per weekday During a course, writing skill played

an important role and was instructed twice a week with two 90 minute-sessions, 21 hours out

of 105 hours in total

The English for University program highly emphasized on building communication skills of students in all four skills Moreover, students could choose to go overboard for their level 5 courses Otherwise foreign teachers who speaked English as their first language or at least second language would teach that level

3.2.Selected subjects

3.2.1 Role of the researcher

In this study, the researcher played the role of a teacher and a data collector in both control and experimental group She was a Vietnamese teacher, who had taught English as a foreign language for nearly 6 years She received her Bachelor of Arts in Teaching English as a foreign language from Ho Chi Minh City University of Agriculture and Forestry, TESOL certificates from Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy At the moment, she worked as a part-time instructor at the research site Her great interest of integrating Cooperative Learning in language teaching and especially optimum feedbacks about English writing from her students and colleagues had motivated her to conduct the study

Although playing a role as both the researcher and the treatment teacher may affect the reliability of the research, the researcher decided to conduct the experiment herself as the convenience of planning and administering She was the one who thoughtfully understood the nature and purposes of the study As the result, the consistency between the research procedures and the teaching process were possibly enabled

3.2.2 Selection of writing examiners

Besides the researcher, there were two more teachers invited to participate in the current study

in order to assess the students’ compositions The primary reason of inviting these teachers was their lots of teaching experiment in university environment One of them have been teaching English for more than ten years The other had cooperated with the research site for nearly four years They all owned master degrees and university teaching certificates In addition, the researcher noticed their interest and curiosity in applying Cooperative Learning into writing in

a Cooperative Professional Development workshop Another reason was their experience in marking writing papers in the National High School Exam of English and the English entrance exams at the research site

Participating in the current research, these teachers gave the researcher a lot advice in adjusting lesson plans to fit with the participants at the venue They also assessed the participants’ writing performance that required lots of subjectivity to minimize the bias in the results of the study

3.2.3 Selection of students

There were 5 voluntary students (2 females and 3 males) involving in the pilot phase, and there were firstly 38 students in the experimental phase They were chosen from level 4 of English for University program from two classes of the research site However, some of the participants’ data in the questionnaire instruments was not complete or they did not either

participate in the pre- or post- test; therefore, their data was not valid enough to use Final number of the student samples was 32 including 24 males and 8 females

To follow this course, the students were obligated to pass level 3 or equivalent to results in the placement test The school requested the learners to attend more than 80% of the lessons which equivalented to 75 hours out of 105 hours By the end of the course, level 4 students’ achievement was expected to reach intermediate level (B1 of CEFR) in all of the four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing Writing skill particularly demanded learners to write

an argumentative essay based on the studied topics In other words, they must be able to not only analyze the causes of a problem and give solutions, but also compare and contrast, and give opinion to solve an argument

One class with 14 students (10 boys, 4 girls) was randomly assigned as the control class In this control class, students were engaged in traditional teaching of whole-class The other with 18 students (14 boys, 4 girls) was the experimental class in which writing skills were instructed with the infusion of Cooperative Learning At the beginning, there were 20 participants in the experimental group However, there were 2 male students whose attendance records failed, so their data was no longer valid to the research Hence, the number of the participants decreased

to 32 after all (14 in the control group and 18 in the experimental group)

The convenience sampling method was applied to select the student participants of the study because the researcher could not interrupt the systems and organization of the research site Level 4 students were chosen as they have learnt English for at least 1 course at the research site in comparison to Level 1, 2 and 3 On the other hand, this level main objective was to help students acquire the vocabulary range and to enhance all language skills required for the up-coming advanced level Additional writing and grammar lessons would be incorporation in the course In accordance, essay writing was going to be instructed in this level; meanwhile the other levels only focused on paragraph writing

A summary of the demographic information of learner subjects is illustrated in Table 3.1

Table 3.1 Student Subjects

Male Female Graphic

design

Software engineer

Marketing

Control group 14 71% 29% 6.6% 80.4% 13% 100 Experimental

group

18 78% 22% 22.7% 59.3% 18% 100

3.3.Research design

The research design of the study was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design Two classes

of students participated in the study Convenience sampling was used because the setting was

a private school in which researcher could not interrupt its operations One class was assigned

to be the control class learning writing with whole-class instruction; the other was the experimental class receiving Cooperative Learning treatment in their writing classes The treatment lasted for seven weeks Pre-test before the treatment and post-test after the treatment were both applied for two classes

3.3.1 Experimental group (EG)

The teaching materials were mainly employed from Summit 1 Third Edition by Pearson for

both groups However, the instructional design of Cooperative Learning in the EG was integrated within the participants’ regular English curriculum in which learning focused more

on the learners The students were the ones who took initiatives in their learning, and the teacher was only the supporter (Wood, 1996) Participants in EG were able to work with friends in pairs, teams or on their own for different writing assignments They helped each other understand the materials through peer modelling, peer practice, peer correction and peer assessment For example, during pre-writing stages, the activities were cooperatively designed that students worked and discussed with friends in contrast to the CG’s whole-class discussion

or individually approach In addition, target readers of students in this group were not only their instructor, but also their classmates who gave comments on the organization and content

of their writing, also the grammatical structure such as grammar, punctuation and capitalization Therefore, they were able to receive feedbacks from both their teacher and peers

3.3.2 Control group (CG)