A Study On The Application Of Cooperative Learning To English Major In Higher Vocational Colleges

Higher vocational education aims to cultivate talents who can plough into work directly after graduation. As English majors in higher vocational colleges are regarded, it can be concluded that they should master the following five skills, as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. They are supposed to be able to communicate with English speaking people in English, with certain interpersonal communicating abilities. In short, applied English in higher vocational colleges aims to cultivate applied talents who are equipped with both professional knowledge and communicating skills. However, there are still a lot of problems in present English teaching in higher vocational colleges, namely, the backward teaching models, conservative teaching ideology, plain teaching method, heavy teaching burden on teachers etc. Consequently, students are lack of keen interest and motivation in study. These problems result in disappointing teaching quality, and thus hinder the cultivating of talents in higher vocational education.Hence, the author believes that adopting cooperative leaning in applied English teaching in higher vocational colleges is the key to the problems.Cooperative learning is wildly adopted across the world. It is a new teaching model with creativity and actual effects. Studies home and abroad prove that cooperative learning is rather effective in improving classroom atmosphere, stimulating students and greatly improving students’ academic achievement, reducing students’ learning anxiety, as well as developing students cooperative and communicative skills.Based on English teaching practice and questionnaire in vocational colleges, with three methods----Role-play, Student’s Team Achievement Division, and Team-game-tournament applied in Integrated English course, the paper analyzes data from the experiment in detail and draws the conclusion that it is effective to apply cooperative learning in English teaching in higher vocational colleges, concerning with improving students’ English learning interests, learning attitude and academic achievement.