An Experimental Study Of Cooperative Learning In Junior Middle School Classroom English Teaching

Cooperative Learning is one of the most effective teaching theories and strategies. It is popular with the students and the teachers in China because it caters to the development of China’s language teaching reform. Heterogeneous groups are main forms in Cooperative learning. With the teacher’s guidance, all the group members reach the common learning goals through mutual cooperation between the members of the group. The rewards are given according to the total score of the group, aiming at promoting unity and cooperation among group members. In this paper, theoretical analysis and experimental research are employed to find out whether cooperative learning can improve the students’English knowledge and enhance their English learning interest.This thesis, intends to prove the effectiveness of cooperative learning in junior middle school English teaching so as to address its importance in the process of classroom language teaching. In views of English learners in China, this thesis adopted the modern teaching concepts of English teaching under the guidance of the National English Curriculum. At the same time, the author of this paper analyzed the availabilities and necessities of applying cooperative learning in junior middle school English teaching based on her own classroom teaching experiment.The author conducted the experiment by applying cooperative learning in Grade Seven. Class Two was chosen as the experimental class which had45students while Class Three as the control class in which there were47students. In the process of classroom teaching cooperative learning was applied in the experimental class, whereas the traditional English teaching in the control class as it is the usual case in the other four classes of the grade. The experiment was divided into3stages and lasted18weeks. The writer took the final examination of the first semester for Grade Seven in2010-2011school year of Hexi District, Tianjin as pre-test. The terminal examination of the second semester for Grade Seven in2010-2011school year of Hexi District, Tianjin was taken as post-test. The same questionnaire was made to both the experimental and control class before and after the experiment. The data were collected and analyzed by z-test.Before the experiment, z-test shows-that there is no significant difference in academic achievements and interest in learning English between the experimental class and control class. After the experiment, the academic achievements of the experimental class are significantly higher than that of the control class, especially for the students with low English level. And more students in experimental class show great interest in learning English. So it suggests that cooperative learning helps students learn English better, and it is helpful in arousing students’interest in learning English.