Application Of Cooperative Learning In Senior English Class

Traditional English teaching is always dominated by a teacher-centered and examination-oriented method. Knowledge of English is transmitted through the instructor who acts as an authority, a knowledge-giver and moral example to students, who are simply silent passive knowledge receiver. Therefore it is natural to see students cannot communicate or read fluently even after having learned English for several years. English Curriculum Standard indicates that English teaching should be linked with affection so as to facilitate students'group study and cooperation. At the same time students'honorability of masses are supposed to come into being and their sense of achievements are implemented as well. Teachers adopt task-based approach to organize specific classroom procedure, aiming at realizing students'mutual cooperation by means of perception, sympathy, practice, participation and so forth, in which the learners value to obtain the pleasure of success.There is a great need to reflect on the teaching methods of English teaching in senior high schools and make some changes. The author aims to discuss the effective teaching approach to English language teaching in senior middle school. Among various teaching approaches, cooperative learning is comparatively quite practical. Students are prone to facilitate the interaction in senior English class by cooperating in classroom so that they are capable of being provided with more opportunities to enhance competence, cultivate cooperation spirits and communicative sensibility, from which the learners can lay good foundation for their future personal development.Cooperative learning, a form of collaboration, is"working together to accomplish shared goals". It stemmed from the U.S. in the 1970s and soon developed further radically in 1980. Since 1990 this teaching approach has been broadly implemented in China. Presently numerous junior and senior high schools have utilized this teaching approach. Nowadays, a lot of empirical researches testify that cooperation can motivate learners to facilitate their learning interest much more efficiently than previous traditional teaching methods and approaches. Simultaneously cooperative learning tasks help to build up human correlation and foster sound and perfect psychological identity among the learners.Cooperative learning tasks bring about the improvement of learners'achievements and learning efficiency as a result of motivating learners'academic interest in terms of humanist perspective, which is very popular and widely used in foreign primary and high schools. In most areas of China especially in most of the under-developed rural areas, there exist numerous problems in school education: too large classes in size; too poor teaching equipment and unqualified teachers and so on. With time going on, they are becoming worse in some sense. The minority of educators argue that cooperative learning style has been quitted in some areas. Hence it is extremely practical and indispensable for educators to research cooperative learning in a large-sized classroom at the present time.In this thesis, the author probes into the basic application of cooperative learning in large English classes of high schools, aiming at inquiring into possibility and necessity of application of cooperative learning in English classes from the angle to the theory. Simultaneously, the author testifies that cooperative learning seems to be more efficient in fostering and facilitating learners'achievements and learning interests than traditional teaching methods from practice. The thesis adopts common quantitative research based on small data from the students of two classes in No. 2 Middle School in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province that the author is working in now. The author adopts the teacher's teaching approaches by means of a questionnaire. The conclusion of the experiment is that cooperative learning can promote the interaction in senior English class and is suitable and helpful to large class English teaching and learning.This thesis includes six chapters:Chapter I. IntroductionChapter II. Literature reviewChapter III. Cooperative learning in senior English classChapter IV. Research designChapter V. Data Collection and AnalysisChapter VI. ConclusionTo sum up, the thesis highlights the significance of recognition from English teachers'learning academic theory so that it can equip sufficient empirical justification for follow-up teaching research by discussing cooperative learning theory. It also indicates that cooperative learning research provides access to efficient classroom teaching designs in various ways.