A Study Of The Effects Of GWMD Cooperative Learning On Students' Vocabulary Learning In College English

Vocabulary is to a language what bricks are to a building. It is of great significance for students to grasp a large amount of vocabulary, which is basic for them to learn English well. However, nowadays, there exist some phenomena in English vocabulary learning in colleges of China that teachers explain words a lot in class, but students practise so little, and teachers and students spend lots of time on vocabulary learning, but the result is not satisfying, so that such learning and teaching styles make the class dull and boring, and render the students passive and in low enthusiasm in learning vocabulary. What's more, students are accustomed to learning vocabulary individually by rote remembering the words, not by cooperation and communication Thus, it is necessary to find a better and more effective learning method to learn vocabulary, and the cooperative concept of directing to the whole learners and facilitating students'language development is the trend of the present curriculum reform that is worth advocating in college English vocabulary learning.With regard to these problems, the study makes a research on the relevance of Group Work Mixed Division (GWMD) cooperative learning and English vocabulary acquisition effect by the experiment of vocabulary learning among college students. The purpose of the research is to seek an effective way of vocabulary learning, to help students remember English vocabulary as much as possible to improve their ability to use English. The subjects (N=80) in this study are randomly selected from the students of Law majors who were admitted into a university of He Ze in 2009. The subjects are in two parallel classes, which are divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Students in the experimental group gain vocabulary by GWMD cooperative learning, while students in control group study the same vocabulary in their learning in a traditional way. One semester later, T test is conducted to obtain the significant difference in students'academic achievement in vocabulary between the experimental group implemented by GWMD cooperative learning and control group by the traditional method. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are made in the research. And the data are collected through pre-test, post-test and questionnaire, and then SPSS 13.0 software is used to analyze the collected data quantitatively. The result indicates that there is a significance difference in academic performance of college students who learn vocabulary in GWMD cooperative learning than those in control group who learn the same vocabulary in a traditional way.As is seen, GWMD cooperative learning has a great relevance with students'vocabulary remembering and using. The application of GWMD cooperative learning not only can change the traditional ways of English vocabulary learning, but also can enhance the ability of students to use vocabulary. The achievement of the subjects who learn in a traditional way is worse than those who learn in a cooperative way. Besides, the method can also stimulate students'learning interests, create more opportunities for them to practise, involve and cooperate with others, develop their positive attitudes, facilitate their critical thinking and ultimately, can improve students'abilities of autonomous learning. Therefore, it is rational and feasible for college students to adopt GWMD cooperative learning in their vocabulary learning. Finally, some suggestions are put forward in the thesis for the future research and the prospect is made.