Cooperative Learning: Changing Paradigms Of English Teaching In Vocational And Technical College

With more and more communication between China and the world outside, English, as an international language, plays an increasingly important role. English becomes one of the most important courses in the college curriculums. However, not all college students involved in English learning could be fruitfully rewarded. Because of the poor teaching result and the criticisms from all sides, many educators have begun to reevaluate the old teaching model and try new paradigms in order to improve students' English proficiency more efficiently. Cooperative Learning is one of the choices and is gaining favor among teachers.The aim of this action research is to find out whether cooperative learning suits for vocational and technical college English classroom, whether cooperative learning can improve classroom atmosphere and what changes will happen in students' behavior when cooperative learning is employed. What the paper focuses on is students' psychological change and classroom behaviors in cooperative learning, and students' attitude toward cooperative learning as well. The paper also puts forward some issues of common concern, strategies and tips on cooperative learning which are summarized in my practical implementationTwo natural parallel classes are chosen for the experiment. Of the two classes, one is an Experimental Class; the other is a Control Class. The participants are 71 sophomores, who major in Technology of Electric Power Supply and Application in Fujian Vocational and Technical College of Water Conservancy and Electric Power. The traditional method is used in the Control Class while cooperative learning is employed in the Experimental Class. The methods the author of the paper use in cooperative learning consists of classroom behavior observation, interview, questionnaire and data analysis. The inspiring outcomes from the study prove that cooperative learning can also work well in vocational and technical English classroom, and that students can experience the happiness of learning in interaction and become a master of their study.