Résumé:
The present study attempts to examine the role of group work in enhancing students’ self-confidence in writing and their writing ability. In other words, it aims at investigating the potential impact of group work as one effective technique used by the teachers of English as foreign language, at the department of English, University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia-Jijel, on students’ attitudes towards their writing self-confidence and performance. Throughout this research, we hypothesize that if teachers implement the group work technique in the English classes while carrying out writing tasks, students’ writing self-confidence and ability will be improved. To verify the validity of this hypothesis, the students’ writing ability is tested by comparing individually-written paragraphs to paragraphs written in a group. After that, two kinds of questionnaires are administered to test students writing self-confidence: the first to the forty first year English students who took the writing test, and the second is given to a random sample of ten teachers having experienced teaching writing. The discussion of the results has shown that using cooperative learning enhances first year English students’ writing self-confidence and ability. In addition, students claim that they prefer to write in groups under some conditions. The results obtained in this study are at the same time insights for teachers and students to use the technique of group work effectively in writing classes.
