An Empirical Study Of The Feasibility Of Cooperative Learning In Large-class College English Teaching

With the determination to popularize the higher education among the common people, China has been broadening the recruitment in the institutions of higher education since 1999 to meet the need of globalization. As a result, the class size in college English teaching becomes larger and larger. And the emphasis on the cultivation of students' communicative competence or the ability to use English has found the traditional teaching methods of teacher-centeredness inadequate in large-class English language teaching, resulting in such problems as the students' passive learning attitude, the difficulty in giving and receiving feedback in time, the less oral practicing time. For the English teachers facing such challenges, it is desirable to attempt the approach of student-centered cooperative learning in place of the traditional teacher-centered English language teaching.Based on a review of learning theories and second language acquisition theories and some major research projects on cooperative learning, this research attempts to find out the effects of cooperative learning on the students' English proficiency, specifically their speaking ability and their attitude towards English language learning.In order to test the effectiveness of the cooperative learning approach in large-class English language teaching, the author designed an experiment with a set of cooperative learning activities and conducted it through the procedure of clarifying the term of cooperative learning, grouping the students in the experimental class, assigning roles and setting the group norms, establishing evaluation criteria and observing and analyzing the students' performance. During the experiment, the author emphasized the heterogeneous grouping, group interaction, positive interdependence and individual accountability, the development of small group social skills and group processing when the students were working for their common group goal.After the establishment of the experimental class and the control class for the...