Cooperative Learning for Correcting Written Grammar Mistakes

One of the challenges which language teachers face in everyday classroom practice is involving students actively in the various steps of the lesson, so that they can be encouraged and motivated to learn more. One of the moments of the language lesson in which students tend to be passive is the moment of error correction and grammar revision, which usually follows a written test: most students tend to pay attention more to the mark they received than to their mistakes. This study, which reports some research conducted on some Italian learners of English as a foreign language, compares the results of correction and grammar revision activities performed in a traditional way and through cooperative learning. The students corrected through cooperative learning were enthusiastic about this type of activity and also their scores over time show in some cases better results than the students corrected in a traditional way. These data could encourage both language teachers to experiment this type of cooperative learning activities in their classrooms and researchers to continue exploring the potential of cooperative learning.