On Cooperative Learning In English Teaching Class At Junior Middle School

Cooperative learning is regarded as the most creative and effective teaching approach in the recent years. It is replacing the traditional teaching method all around the world. So more and more teaching experts and teachers are caring for this new strategy.The traditional English class is mainly dominated by teachers. Teachers are the authority of the knowledge and occupies the majority of time. Students only sit there and are passive to listen .They have no chance to participate in teaching and learning. The teaching method is not only single but also very boring. Teachers emphasize the importance of grammar and language teaching, which can hardly arouse the students'interest to study English. What's more, teachers usually ignore to train the students to develop their ability to communicate in English. So students in this teacher-centered class can only receive limited knowledge. while cooperative learning focuses on learners'interest, attitude, motivation and skills which are just accord with the demands of the New Curriculum of National Educational Department. It emphasizes that learners complete the learning tasks to develop their autonomy ability and social skills through cooperative learning where they help ,encourage and respect each other. In the cooperative class, the students are given more opportunities and more time to take part in the activities and solve the problems with their group members. It can make students freely express and exchange their opinions, communicate in English with each other,which tallies with language studying. Students in the cooperative class feel less anxious and are more willing to work on the task. The students'enthusiasm of learning is aroused.The purpose of this thesis attempts to find out the actual effect of cooperative learning and answer whether the students'attitude (interest, relationship) to English has a change in cooperative learning class and whether students'English scores can be improved in the cooperative learning class at Junior Middle School .The author used Learning Together (LT)to make an experiment with pre- and post-test, questionnaire and interview for about four months to test and verify this study hypothesis. The paper analyzes the significance, elements and cooperative learning methods of cooperative learning and its application. By analyzing the data of the experiment, the author drew a conclusion that students'attitude to English has a change and their English scores can be improved in the cooperative learning class.At last, the author hopes that all the teaching experts and English teachers can have more innovative views and give more suggestions about cooperative learning and the students can benefit from this teaching method and become interested in learning English.