The Application Of Cooperative Learning Strategy To The Lead-in In Senior High School English Class

English classroom teaching is a common organizational form in foreign languageteaching. Lead-in is the most basic step in classroom teaching and learning, whichoccupies in3-5minutes. Though it is a small proportion, but its function cannot beunderestimated. If lead-in is launched properly in a class, it can draw students’attention, stir their interest and intrinsic motivation in English learning so that studentstend to participate actively into classroom teaching situation and promote theefficiency of English teaching. However, the relevant researches aren’t studied anddeveloped sufficiently on lead-in in senior high school English class at home untilnow. They mostly stay in the level of experience summary rather than empiricalresearches. Some teachers think that it is a a waste of time to search the art of lead-in.They would like to seize the time of class and go on to adopt the traditional teachingmethods straightly to deal with the teaching material into the theme. It makes studentsfeel very dull and tired. In addition, this action cannot meet the requirements of theNational English Curriculum, whose basic objective for the senior high schoolEnglish teaching is to stimulate students to have the further understanding of theEnglish learning: to keep, develop their independent consciousness and cooperativelearning ability, to cultivate their desire, cofidence, and collaborative spirit; toprovoke their unity awareness and responsibility.Thus, based on the current situation, the thesis brings in cooperative strategy andexplores the effective application of cooperative learning strategy to lead-in. Theproposed hypothesis are as follows.1) Cooperative learning strategy may arouselearners’ interest and provoke their enthusiasm in English learning, which is morehelpful for learners to involve in classroom learning actively in order to realize theaim of students as the center.2) Students, who learn English by cooperative strategies,have been more self-directing and interdependent learners and own higher levels ofintellectual achievement than those who have received knowledge through thetraditional teaching method.3) Under the guidance of cooperative learning strategy,lead-in, as the starting link of English class, forms more pleasing and relaxing language atmosphere, and builds better relationship between peers and teachers. Forstudents themselves, application for eliminating learning anxiety and tension is veryeffective in classroom teaching and learning.The author adopts such methods as language tests, interviews, and classobservation to prove the effectiveness of cooperative learning strategy on lead-in.Subjects are chosen in Class1and Class2, Grade1of No.22Senior High School,Shijiazhuang, Hebei. A number of students are84. Class1consisting of42students isthe control class, while class2which also has42ones, is the experimental class. Thetwo classes are taught by the author at the same time. The experimental time is asemester. The statistic analysis is by employing unvariate SPSS13.0for windows.Through the pre-test, students have similar learning background and the rate of eachlevel is confirmed to be close. There are no significant differences in academicachievement of two classes. After a semester, data shows that two classes make adistance from each other in their improvement of English proficiency. Even more, thecontrol class exists a obvious differentiation phenomenon in scores, but the ones ofexperimental class among students are more concentrated. In addition, frominterviews and class observation, the author finds that students tend to likecooperative learning strategy with high motivation, have improved their own oralEnglish greatly and learn many social skills including mutual help, assuming riskstogether and so on. To sum up, the conclusion drawn is that cooperative learningstrategy applied is more effective than using the traditional method on the lead-in.