The Application Of Cooperative Learning To Business English Teaching

The purpose of the study is to explore the feasibility of CooperativeLearning (CL) in Business English Classes in China to show:(1) Whether Business English students find it more difficult to studyBusiness English than to study General English.(2) Which parts they think are the most difficult to grasp in studyingBusiness English.(3) What are the advantages of CL over Grammar-TranslationMethod.(4) Whether it is applicable to incorporate CL into Business Englishclasses, whatever the theoretical bases are.(5) How to apply CL into Business English Classes, what methodsinstructors can use in class.(6) How students reply to a cooperative class.(7) Whether CL can improve the overall Business English proficiencyof the learners in reading, writing, listening and speaking.(8) Whether CL can affect Learners'attitude towards studyingBusiness English.(9) What are the difficulties implementing CL in a Business EnglishClass and how to deal with them.The thesis tries to give a satisfying answer to each of the abovequestions by studying the characteristics of Business English, the theoreticalbases of Cooperative Learning, techniques, essential factors and making anempirical study.In the empirical study, to prove the effectiveness of CooperativeLearning in Business English, the researcher adopted a well-designedquestionnaire and compared the academic achievements of studentsinstructed by use of Cooperative Learning with those of students instructedby use of Grammar-Translation Method in a BEC Vantage test.The statistics gathered from the questionnaire and the BEC testsuccessfully answered the above questions and proved that theimplementation of CL in Business English classes is feasible and CL isefficient to improve learners'academic achievements.