Abstract:
This study sets out to get insight into the effect of the Johnsons’ “Learning Together” cooperative model and teacher’s feedback on second-year EFL students' writing ability. Another equally considerable part of this research is to check whether CL and teachers’ feedback are used in the writing cl ass, the way they have to, and the teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the importance of integrating these methods in the writing class. This investigation is based on the hypothesis that if students under study receive effective teacher’s feedback while writing cooperatively, their writing ability would likely be better. In addition, we hypothesize that the teachers are convinced of the productivity of their feedback and CL in the writing class and would reach fruitful results if th ey are aware of the principles required in order to successfully implement these techniques, and that students would like to write cooperatively and receive teachers’ feedback if their perceptions towards these techniques are taken into consideration. To test out the first hypothesis, we have used a true randomized post-test only control group design, alternatively teachers’ and students’ questionnaires are used to check out the second one. Post-test results showed that st udents in the Exp.G produced better assignments than students who wrote individually and that the Exp.G relatively outperformed the CG in the five components of writing. T-test statistically confirmed the obtained results at the .05 level of significance and determined the effectiveness of these techniques on students’ writing. The second hypothesis is also confirmed, in that both teachers and students are fully aware of the im portance of CL and teachers’ feedback in the writing class, however most of the teachers have been found to not organize the students’ groups according to the basic elements of CL, do not make training on this technique either for themselves or their students, still overemphasis surface-level feedback and negative feedback , and their feedback is usually given at the students’ end product. In addition, students claim that they prefer to write in groups under some conditions and that teachers’ feedback have to be in line with their personalities and styles, and ask teachers to couple praises with criticisms to give them the balance d feedback they need. Based on the provided results, we have suggested some recommendations that would serve as insights for teachers to use these techniques effectively.
