On Application Of Cooperative Language Learning To English Intensive Reading Teaching

Current intensive reading courses to most Chinese students of English, especially to non-English majors in college follow almost the same pattern: the teacher lectures to and explains grammar points, conducts drills, or at best leads the whole-class in discussion while the students simply listen to the teacher and follow his instructions passively without a single thought of his own. Accustomed to this way of teaching, most students find it little interesting to study English. They spend so much time and make so great efforts in learning English, but still their basic skills of using English remain underdeveloped. Many students complain that their English proficiency especially listening and speaking is still far from satisfactory in spite of average six or seven years of learning English.Nowadays, the emphasis of discussion of effective language instruction has shifted from teacher-centered to learner-centered classroom and from transmission-oriented to participatory or constructivist knowledge development. Based on the above-mentioned innovative approaches, cooperative language learning (CLL) is gaining ground and winning broad acceptance in a multitude of language learning classrooms, principally because of its contributions to improving the overall climate of the classroom and its potentials for providing supportive and expanded opportunities for learners to use the language. However, few studies and practices have touched the implementation of CLL in intensive reading class.Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the implementation of CLL in intensive reading class has positive effect on improving the passive situation of students, whether it helps activate their enthusiasm for and ease their language anxiety of participation in class activity, and whether it is helpful to their improvement of English proficiency especially listening and speaking.With a sketchy recall of its history, this paper mainly succinctly but appropriately examines the cognitive, psychological, and social bases of the cooperative language learning. Then, it anticipates the benefits of the use of cooperative language learning in the classroom, such as the embracing affectiveinclimate, the promoting interaction and the increasing opportunities for learners to listen to and produce language. To achieve these benefits, the teacher should comply with and grasp the basic elements, including positive interdependence, face-to-face "promotive" interactions, individual accountability, small group social skills, and group processing, so as to improve the students' motivation for English learning and create a sound and lively classroom atmosphere. The implementation of CLL in intensive reading classroom covers the following stages: first, the preparation for the CLL needs to be done before teaching. Then, some cooperative language learning activities will be introduced to help improve the effectiveness of group activities in intensive reading classroom. Finally, the group processing and the teacher's evaluation will be carried out after teaching task done. Moreover, the author raises some problems likely to arise during the implementation and offers her opinions on the teacher's role in CLL.All the data about the students' feedback are collected through a questionnaire delivered at the beginning of the study and near the end of the study, the following interview and the observation throughout the study. The final results show that, CLL do have some positive effects on improving the present passive situation in English classroom. It also helps activate their enthusiasm for and ease their language anxiety of participating in class activity. The cooperative language learning deserves to be recommended to Chinese teachers and students to bring a new life into the gloomy and monotonous English classroom.