Cooperative Learning Applied In Helping College Students Cultivate And Develop Their Autonomous Learning

A series of study have shown that most of the researchers and educators hold the same point of view that fostering learners'autonomous learning (AL) is one of the most important goals in language teaching. In China, the development of learner autonomy has received shaper attention. Meanwhile, a number of studies have also shown cooperative learning (CL) has increasingly become a pervasive educational approach in the world since 1970. As a theoretic and strategic system applied by many countries in the world in the past three decades, CL has been proved that it is a creative and effective teaching approach.The purpose of this thesis is an attempt to find out the potentially positive relationship between these two theories and the effective impact of CL-inspired college English teaching and learning on cultivating and developing students'AL. The researcher has chosen non-English majors from two freshmen classes in Taiyuan University of Science & Technology, one as Control Class, and the other one as Experimental Class. During a whole semester's study, the results of questionnaires, interviews and tests together with the class observation show that students'AL abilities are surely enhanced in the CL-inspired teaching practice and CL surely can affect the students'learning achievements, especially cultivate and improve their AL. English learning is no more a burden but pleasure to the them, whose enthusiasm of learning English has been stimulated. Both theory and practice outcomes prove that cooperative learning is undoubtedly an effective teaching approach, as long as it is utilized properly.This paper consists of altogether six chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to the whole thesis focusing on scope of the research and the significance of the study and thus proposing the practical application of CL in helping students improve their AL abilities. Chapter Two introduces some related rationale about CL and AL. Chapter Three is the theoretical bases of the research. The next two chapters are the major parts of this research, including the arrangement of the research, its specific steps and the actual fulfillment of the whole research and the detailed analysis and discussion on the basis of the data collected and calculated through the whole research. Chapter Six is a natural conclusion of this research, which talks about the implications of this language teaching research.To better the current situation of college English teaching and learning, especially in raising learners'awareness in AL, the researcher makes some elementary exploration of the application of CL into college English teaching and learning. On the basis of the practical operation of the whole research, the thesis will play an essential role in helping teachers understand and apply CL theory into college English teaching and learning in-depth. Additionally, it is hoped that this study could be reference for further development of AL, curriculum design, evaluation means and teacher training.