Promoting Non-English Major Freshmen's Autonomy Through Cooperative Learning

A report presented to UNESCO by the International 21st Century Education Committee (1996) put forward four educational precepts. They are learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be. These four precepts have great significance for educators. Teachers can at least draw two teaching beliefs from the four precepts. One is to develop autonomous learners; the other is to educate learners to be cooperative. In today's exploration of knowledge, it is impossible for learners to learn all knowledge, and what they have learned at school might not be useful or relevant to their future needs as no knowledge is secure. Therefore it is of vital importance for teachers to develop learners' autonomy so that learners will continue to take in much more knowledge and develop themselves in future life.The non-English major freshmen are totally dependent on their teacher and passive while being taught. They depend on their teacher for planning, implementing and evaluating the outcome of the learning process. They expect the teacher to structure the learning situation for them, and tell them what to learn and how to learn.Traditional EFT in China is dominated by a teacher- centered, examination-oriented, grammar and vocabulary-based method. Knowledge of English is transmitted through the teacher who acts as "an authority, a knowledge-giver."(Cortazzi & Jin, 1996). The students are passive receivers of knowledge and they mainly learn through repetition and memorization.On the basis of social interactionism, this thesis puts forward the idea that cooperative learning is an effective way to promote non-English freshmen's autonomy. Cooperative learning offers an effective strategy which modern language teachers can easily implement in the classroom. Its principles fit together in many ways with the development of language and the use of language for the purposeful communication of messages and ideas. Cooperative learning is based on the idea that students can learn effectively from each other in small-group interactions if their work is carefully detailed and assigned with specific information about the goal, the process, the timing, and the reporting of the results of their tasks.Cooperative learning promotes self-determination among students, helping them to become more autonomous and self-controlled and less dependent on authority (Boud, 1988). It fosters commitment to tasks and encourages students to work cooperatively, to learn to be problem solvers, to become knowers rather than merely assimilators, and to act as evaluators and assessors.With more than twenty years' development in the west, cooperative learning has proven to enhance learners' autonomy effectively. Although there are some factors constraining the implementation of cooperative learning in the tertiary English language teaching in China, we have reasons to believe that as long as some feasible measures are taken, cooperative learning can be accomplished in College English Teaching in China.