Research On Cooperative Activity Strategies In The High School English Classes From The Perspective Of Activity Theory

Cooperative activities have become a widely used form of organizational activities in the high school English classroom teaching.The importance of cooperative learning is clearly put forward in the English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017 edition revised in 2020).Especially with the concept of English Learning Activities Outlook,cooperative activities have become the first choice of classroom activities for many high school English teachers by virtue of their own advantages.However,in the process of carrying out high school English teaching practice,cooperative activities often encounter problems such as goal alienation,content generalization,process virtualization,and result simplification,which can be attributed to improper application of cooperative activity strategies.Traditional studies have proposed new activity strategies based on the problems of collaborative activities in the classroom,while ignoring the interfering factors that affect the application of strategies.In order to further address the application of collaborative activity strategies in a targeted manner,this study selects activity theory to fill the gap in existing strategy research by analysing the impact of different factors in the activity on the system as a whole.This study develops a classroom observation framework and an observation scale based on the Activity Theory and the LICC classroom observation paradigm,and integrates existing cooperative activity strategies in high school English classrooms into three dimensions:cooperative task and tool selection strategies,cooperative group division of labour and group rules strategies,and cooperative group formation and development strategies,and explores the following three research questions through classroom observation methods,interview methods and rooted theory analysis: 1.What are the problems in the application of cooperative activity strategies in high school English classrooms? 2.What are the causes of the problems in the application of cooperative activity strategies in high school English classrooms? 3.What are the improvements in the application of cooperative activity strategies in high school English classrooms?The findings are as follows:Ⅰ.The existing problems in the use of cooperative activities in high school English classrooms are: 1.The learning task types lack scientificity;the higher-order task designs lack "learning scaffolding";the resources are provided with insufficient "context" and limited "communication".2.Cooperative group and intra-group rule strategies: students are grouped mainly by "seating" arrangement,without creating a fair speech environment;the division of labor within the group is not clear,and the responsibility for the task is not assigned to anyone;the rule requirements ignore the rules of speech supervision and results evaluation.3.Cooperative group formation and development strategies: students’ participation was polarized;the breadth and depth of participation needed to be improved;teachers’ role was not positioned correctly and they failed to integrate into the learning community;teachers’ evaluation was the main subject of evaluation,and students’ mutual and self-evaluation were lacking;the evaluation content emphasized language results,but not the cooperative process.Ⅱ.These problems are mainly attributed to the following three aspects: 1.the object content is not explored in depth and rich mediating tools are not provided;2.the subject has a weak sense of rules and ignores the division of roles in the group;3.the sense of community cooperation is missing and the value perception is not adequate.Ⅲ.For the future development of cooperative activities in high school English classrooms,the original strategies can be optimized as follows: 1.Cooperative tasks and tools selection: using SOAR to integrate object content;integrating listening,speaking,reading,viewing and writing resources;making full use of multimedia to broaden the channels of learning and using English.2.Group division of labor and group rules strategies:democratically refine rules;clarify members’ roles and responsibilities;monitor the process of rule implementation.3.Group formation and development strategies: stimulate the motivation of subject cooperation;strengthen teachers’ professionalism;establish positive interdependence.This study attempts to analyze and optimize the strategy application of cooperative activities in high school English classrooms from the perspective of Activity Theory,and provides some operable strategy optimization suggestions based on practical cases,in order to provide new ideas for frontline English teachers to implement cooperative activities in high school English classrooms and effectively improve the effectiveness of cooperative activity strategies.