The Application Of Group Cooperative Learning In Small-Class English Teaching In Rural Junior High Schools

Small-class teaching is a quality education under the guidance of educational modernization.It is based on students’ development and strives to promote students’ all-round personality development.It also enables each student to have access to more educational resources,become the main participants in class and have more opportunities to communicate with teachers.Thus,it gives students more chance to get better education.Since the implementation of small-class teaching in Dongying City in 2013,each small-class teaching pilot school has started a teaching reform in accordance with their own situation.As an important organizational form in small-class teaching,group cooperative learning also gets further promotion and application.Also,it has been recognized by the majority of English teachers and students in rural junior high schools and has some effects.In order to better understand the application of group cooperative learning in small-class English teaching in rural junior high schools,this thesis mainly aims to solve the following problems:(1)How to establish the group cooperative learning effectively?(2)What are the contents and effects of the group cooperative learning?(3)How to evaluate the performance of each student and groups after group cooperative learning in small-class English teaching?(4)What are the students’ affective attitudes towards group cooperative learning?This thesis tries to analyze the current situation of group cooperative learning in rural junior high schools based on the author’s teaching practice,classroom observations and an investigation in form of the questionnaire of 600 eighth-grade students,who are from the small-class educational pilot rural junior high schools in Dongying District of Dongying City.The results show that group cooperative learning has made some achievements.However,there are still many problems in small-class English teaching in rural junior high schools.First,the construction of cooperative learning groups is divided unreasonably and the number of the students in each group is too large according to the whole-class scale.The relationship between the group members is still unequal.And,they lack the cooperative skills.In terms of the contents and effects of the group cooperative learning,the requirements of the tasks are not clear enough and the questions are not reasonable.The distribution of time in group discussion is not suitable enough.As for independent thinking,some studentsare reluctant to think actively and some even don’t think at all.For the role of the teacher in group cooperative learning,the teachers can’t find the right position.In terms of the evaluation of the group cooperative learning,the methods tend to be diversified,but they are not reasonable enough.Some students’ performance can’t be evaluated after the group cooperative learning.Thus,it can help the English teachers of rural junior high schools to find out the problems and deficiencies in the English classroom teaching.To solve these problems,this thesis puts forward some suggestions to help English teachers to improve their teaching methods and the efficiency of English classroom teaching.As for the students’ affective attitudes towards group cooperative learning,the majority of the students are positive,but still a small number of students are negative.And,they haven’t realized the advantages of cooperative learning for their English learning.After reflecting on theses problems,this thesis puts forward some rational and adoptable suggestions,hoping to help English teachers improve teaching methods and promote teaching efficiency in junior high schools.