A Study On The Application Of Cooperative Learning In Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

Vocabulary is one of the basic elements of language. It plays an important part in English learning. It is also the key to improving senior high school students? English learning ability, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Nowadays, it is essential for senior high school students to master a large amount of vocabulary according to the National English Curriculum Standard, which requires the senior high school students to grasp a vocabulary of at least 3500 words and phrases when they take the college entrance examination. So the vocabulary teaching and learning are becoming more important than ever before. However, due to lacking appropriate educational theories and efficient teaching ways, so many English teachers still teach vocabulary in a traditional way. There are more than 50 new words in each unit of the senior English textbook. The teachers mainly teach new words one by one and focus on the words? pronunciation and explanation. Meanwhile students just can practise reading new words again and again, take notes and spend much more time memorizing new words. This kind of vocabulary teaching and learning is dull and can?t attract students? attention and motivate their learning interest. And this kind of teaching way, which is the teacher-centered teaching way, can?t pay attention to students? effective participation and interaction, thus students don?t have good ability to cooperate, communicate and express.Luckily, there are so many researches at home and abroad indicating that cooperative learning is one of the most effective learning theories, which is generally acknowledged as one of the creatively learning methods and advocated by the national curriculum reform of basic education. The purpose of it is to create a better learning atmosphere in which the class belongs to students and students have a strong desire to explore knowledge on their own together with their classmates. Cooperative learning has been adopted by many advanced senior high schools at home, such as Jingying Senior School in Shijiazhuang, Hengshui Middle School etc. Zhangye Shiyan Middle School is a newly-opened senior high school. It has been 11 years since our school was converted into a public senior school in 2003. However, compared with the other two public senior high schools in Zhangye, the school students have so much more difficulties in studying, especially the English study, that they have little interest in English. Therefore, in order to improve our students? English learning level and motivate their learning interests, the author will try his best to help students improve their English. So as for our school students? English learning ability, the author determines to adopt Cooperative Learning to motivate students? ability to learn vocabulary and help them master vocabulary better. The research aims to solve the following two problems:1. Does the application of cooperative learning in senior high school vocabulary teaching improve students? English achievements?2. Does the application of cooperative learning in senior high school vocabulary teaching enhance students? vocabulary-using abilities?The research was performed in Class 7 Grade 1 and Class 18 Grade 1. The same teacher taught the two classes, which had the same English level. Class 7 is the experimental class, in which the cooperative learning was applied while Class 18 is the control class which was still taught in the traditional way to learn vocabulary. The research lasted 4 months. The author used pretest, posttests and questionnaires to analyze and learn about the effects of the students? cooperative learning with the help of SPSS 13.0. The results of the research are following:1. By analyzing the data of the pretest and posttests, the scores of the experimental class are higher than those of the control class. It indicates that the cooperative learning is beneficial to students? vocabulary learning and helping them improve their scores.2. The students in the experimental class filled in the questionnaire at the end of the research. The analysis of the data shows that the students take an active attitude to the cooperative learning. Through the cooperative learning, they can have a better ability to master and use vocabulary and build up their confidence.The feature of the thesis lies in its good combination of the cooperative learning and vocabulary teaching, applying the method to English class. It not only makes English class active but also arouses students? learning interests and develops their ability to solve problems together with their group members, thus improving students? English achievements.