A study of the effectiveness of implementing group discussion in classroom to improve secondary school students' practical essay writing ability = Xiao zu tao lun zai ke tang shang de shi yong dui ti sheng zhong xue sheng shi yong wen xie zuo neng li de yan jiu

Abstract

Practical essay writing is one of the compulsory learning elements that a secondary school student needs to learn and is also commonly used in daily life. In order to manipulate the practical essay writing skills, students could not only focus on memorizing the format and neglect the importance of the content. The neglect of this practical essay writing skills results in many students getting fair marks in practical essay writing paper, and especially they perform poorly in public examinations. Hence, having an effective way of teaching to improve students’ practical essay writing ability and to enhance their way of thinking is important.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of the use of group discussion in lessons on improving students’ practical essay writing ability. A sampled class with 32 S.2 students from a band two local school was invited to participate in this study. The effectiveness of group discussion on improving students’ practical essay writing ability would be assessed by the comparison of the pre-test and post-test results, as well as the analysis of the content in pre-test and post-test. Besides, questionnaires were distributed and individual interviews were carried out in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the study.

Analysis shows that group discussion is effective in improving students’ practical essay writing ability and in enhancing students’ content consciousness. As reflected from students’ improved marks in the post-test compared with the pre-test, group discussion teaching methodology is effective in improving students’ practical essay writing ability. The improved content in the post-test also shows that it has aroused students’ content consciousness. Besides, the data collected from the questionnaires and the individual interviews reflect that students enjoy learning how to write a practical essay through group discussion, and they do acquire the skills of writing a good practical essay through this means.

Therefore, the use of group discussion in lessons does not only improve students’ ability to write practical essay, but also arouses their interest. Thus, it is effective and practical to use group discussion to improve students’ practical essay writing ability in mainstream schools.

實用文寫作是中學生必須學習的元素，亦是生活上常見的文體，學生要掌握實用文寫作的方法，並不可只是注重格式，而不注重內容。很多學生的實用文寫作表現一般，尤其在公開考試中成績表現遜色，這都是因為他們對實用文寫作的忽視。 因此，運用有效的實用文教學法以提升學生的寫作能力及思維模式是不可缺乏的。

本研究旨在探討小組討論於課堂上的使用對提升學生實用文寫作的成效。是次研究有32名就讀第二組別學校的中二級學生參與。研究通過比較學生前測及後測成績變化、檢視前測及後測文句上的改變，以及透過問卷及個人訪談等方式以試驗研究成效。

研究結果顯示，小組討論教學法對提升學生實用文寫作能力及語境意識皆有明顯的成效，為實用文教學提供一個有效的教學法。學生的後測成績有明顯的進步，證明學生在小組討論教學法後實用文寫作能力有所提升。從前、後測的文句分析亦可見學生的語境意識有所提高。另外，問卷調查及個人訪談中反映學生喜歡以小組討論的形式進行實用文教學，小組討論教學法能令學生掌握實用文寫作的方法及享受課節。

由此可見，在課堂上使用小組討論教學法能提升學生的實用文寫作能力及興趣，是有效的教學法，在主流學校的中國語文課節上使用是可行的。