| Abstract: | Writing is viewed as a thinking process (Brown, 2001; Elbow, 1973; Zamel, 1982), a tool for language learners to communicate one’s thoughts and feelings effectively through words. For second language (L2) learners, writing is a challenging and complex cognitive activity because they have to consider both global and local aspects of the language (Silva, 1993). In the 1980s, the dominant paradigm for writing instruction shifted from a product-oriented focus to one that was process-oriented (Arndt, 1987), emphasizing the writing stages of planning, translating, and reviewing (Flower & Fayes, 1981). Although peer review has been suggested to have positive influences (Ashwell, 2000; Blanton, 1989, Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Keh, 1990; Paulus, 1999; Tsai, 2003; Tsui, 1999), it has some drawbacks (Amros, 1997; Bender, 1989; Bridwell, 1980; Leki, 1990; Sommer, 1982). One approach to dealing with this problem is to place peer review in the context of a cooperative learning approach. L2 learners are actively engaged in interaction with others to complete tasks, and this has been shown to have a significant influence on writing performance (Orlando, 1991). Thus, incorporating cooperative evaluation into peer review may be of assistance in minimizing negative feedback. On the other hand, reward structure, the contingent relationship between students’ academic performance and consequential rewards, is another important motivational element to make cooperative learning successful (Slavin, 1991b; 1995). Without group rewards for individual learning, and rewards for students in groups who achieve some standards, it is hard to make cooperative learning successful in promoting learning achievement (Cottell & Millis, 1993; Gamson, 1994; Kagan, 1986; Slavin, 1983; Yueh and Alessi, 1988).
At the same time, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has been receiving increasing attention over the past decade and seen as an effective tool for EFL teachers to promote the efficiency of instruction (John, 1995; Kern, 1995; Wei, 2003; Yu, 2001). It has been reported that through the incorporation of CALL into writing instruction, students are able to gain a sense of
empowerment and improve their communicative skills (Chen and Lee, 1998; Frizler, 1995), to offer the interactive peer evaluation, and to exchange of opinions (Braine, 1997; Warschauer, 1996).
In Taiwan, English writing is highly emphasized in senior high schools. However, high school students do not demonstrate high degrees of writing proficiency in the College Entrance Exams based on the CEEC Report (Chang et al., 2000). Furthermore, students think writing is hard, tough, and causes panic (Yang, 2003) because they do not know how to start or organize their ideas (Chen, 2000; Liu, 1998). Especially with the expository and argumentative writings, it is thought generally these two types of writing are more difficult than descriptive and narrative writings because students are required demonstrate higher organizational and analytical abilities to express their opinions. In addition, high school teachers think it is a nightmare to correct students’ writing (Chang, 1996) because of the shortage of time to correct and the inability to give immediate feedback to students.
In light of the issues raised above, how to help students to improve their level of the achievement in English writing, especially in argumentative writing, has become an important issue for exploration. With the employment of cooperative evaluation and group rewards in a CALL learning environment (the WE-COOL system), this research investigated whether high school students in Taiwan could improve their writing performance in argumentative essay writing.
By means of four instruments – writing tests, questionnaires of English writing attitude, questionnaires of responses to the writing system, and the observation of interactive behavior types – a 25-week quasi-experiment was conducted. The principal findings were as follows:
(1)
There was an interaction effect of cooperative evaluation and group rewards on the improvement of students’ overall argumentative writing achievement. Simple main effects were also found significantly under two conditions (cooperative evaluation and group rewards) in the domains of the overall scores, focus, organization, and conventions.
(2)
There was an interaction effect of cooperative evaluation and group rewards on students attitudes toward English writing. Writing confidence was increased and anxiety was reduced significantly. However, their perceptions of the usefulness of English writing remained unchanged.
(3)
Main effects were found significantly in the use of online peer review activity. Also, it was found that the students responded positively to the use of the system.
(4)
With group rewards, some interactive behavior types were found to be significantly different in several writing exercises, including asking questions, discussion, peer revising, self revising, and chatting.
On the basis of these findings, several pedagogical implications are raised, along with suggestions for further related research. |
