Cooperative Learning And College English Teaching

Cooperative learning is a theoretic and strategic system applied by many countries in the world in the past three decades. Many researches have proved that it is a creative and effective teaching approach: There has been a growing consensus among researchers about the positive effects of cooperative learning. The experiments implemented in elementary and middle school on the studies of cooperative learning prove effective. The increasing enrollment of college in china pushed EFL teaching confront with new challenges: the inexorable trend of large-class (more than 60 persons) English teaching in many universities. Traditional teaching is not suit for new situation any more. It is expected that cooperative learning is effective on large-class English teaching in college. The paper first describes present situation of college English teaching in china, then puts forward the questions and purpose of research. Based on theories of motivation, cognition and etc., the author of the thesis advocates that cooperative learning is applicable in the area of language teaching and learning. In addition, a 15-week experimental research was carried out. The 126 subjects from non-English majors were involved in Qiqihar University. Under the analysis of the statistics from questionnaires and interview, the findings indicate that cooperative learning is popular in college and classroom atmosphere of experimental group is more comfortable and active. Learners in experimental group tend to be more autonomous. Finally, some general implications are concluded and suggestions for further studies are put forward. In short, both theory and practice show that cooperative learning is an effective teaching approach. As long as it is utilized properly, much better teaching effects can be attained.