An Experimental Study On Cooperative Learning In Junior High School English Vocabulary Teaching

At present,many junior high school English teachers in China still use traditional method to teach vocabulary.They spend a lot of time in explaining the vocabulary in class,and students take notes,which not only make the students feel that vocabulary learning is boring,but also cannot let them grasp the true meaning of a word and its usage.At the same time,there is a large vocabulary in English textbooks published by People’s Education Press for junior high school.Students’ vocabulary learning is poor in quality and low in efficiency.The lack of vocabulary and the inaccurate understanding of words hinder students’ development of integrative language ability,which leads to a decline in their learning interest.The Ministry of Education issued new National English Curriculum Standards for Full-time Compulsory Education in 2011 which sets an even higher demand on the students.After completing the junior high school English study,as far as vocabulary knowledge is concerned,students are requested to accurately use about 1600 words and phrases.As far as affect and attitude are concerned,teachers have to consciously develop students’ interest in learning,praise and encourage them,and build up their confidence.In addition,teachers also have to let students clearly know their merits and demerits in learning,be willing to cooperate with others,develop positive and progressive character.Therefore,English teachers should always insist on learning new teaching theories and methods.In order to achieve better vocabulary teaching results,teachers need not only make students really learn vocabulary,but also let students love learning vocabulary.Teaching activities of Cooperative Learning advocate cooperative interaction among the students.Cooperative Learning can make the classroom atmosphere become relaxed and happy,enable students to get progress,and the effect is also very significant in the training of students’ non-cognitive quality.Therefore,the theory is widely used in the classroom by many countries in the world due to its features of innovation and high efficiency.The author also tends to use the theory in her own vocabulary teaching class,hoping to achieve positive results.The experimental study lasts 3 months.The subjects are the author’s 108 students from two parallel classes in Grade 7.Before and after the experiment,the author collects data and information by means of testing,questionnaire and interview.Then the data are analyzed and compared by using data analysis software.The results of analysis prove that students’ vocabulary is enlarged and their abilities to use the vocabulary are improved.Moreover,students are more confident and think learning vocabulary is an interesting thing.