A Study On The Application Of Cooperative Learning In Comprehensive English Class

The theory of Cooperative Learning has made the greatest impact on the modern educational theory. And it is one of the fields that have been greatly fruitful since these years. Abroad, the research of CL can be traced back to the early 20th century. By the time of 1960s and 1970s, the theory, which is considered as a kind of strategy, has rigorously developed. From the 1990s, CL has been popular with the teachers and the students. The reason is that it has made a major breakthrough in the traditional trend of teaching techniques, which is so-called "tian ya" (the cramming method of teaching) style. CL is adapted to the trend of educational reform in China.The purpose of this research is to give further analysis of cooperative learning and to observe individual student's performance in comprehensive English class and to collect students'attitudes towards this teaching framework. Observation is employed as a major source of data collection, for as Hopkins noted, observation is a pivotal activity with a crucial role to play in classroom research, and it is considered the best way to collect required information when the researcher is more interested in the behavior than in the perceptions of individuals. In addition to observation, this research also adopts interview as a complementary method. It is one of the most commonly used methods in educational research to obtain subjects'attitudes and it can be used on a small scale in classroom environment. This study is helpful to promote the transformation of education in English learning, from teacher-centered to learner-centered classrooms and to raise teachers'working efficiency and students'language abilities.This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction. It presents background of the study and the purpose of the present research as well as the structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 reviews relevant literature. Chapter 3 deals with cooperative learning applying in the Comprehensive English Course. Chapter 4 is about the description of the investigation, which accounts for its research methods, subjects, instructional design and procedures. Chapter 5 shows the analysis of results,including presenting, discussing the data. Chapter 6 makes the conclusion from the data and practical implications.