Application Of The Cooperative Learning In Senior High School's Exercise Classes

According to the New Curriculum Criteria, the tasks for the senior high school's education is to advocate the students to join in their study actively; to explore the problems by themselves; to cultivate the students'abilities to analyze and solve problems as well as communicate and cooperate with other students. Besides that a harmonious and relaxed classroom atmosphere should also be provided. As a result, the author holds that the cooperative learning approach should be not only applied in the senior high school's classes in which to teach new knowledge but also used in the exercise classes. For such a long time that exercise classes have followed the traditional way that it mostly depended on the teacher's pedagogic behavior. What the students do is only to accept the knowledge passively by taking note of what their teachers said mechanically under a depressing atmosphere. Under such a boring atmosphere students cannot really enjoy their study or study efficiently. So a new teaching method, cooperative approach, can cover this shortage. It can help the students have more chances to participate in the real communication in the exercise class. Cooperative learning originates from America at the beginning of the 20th century, and has got a substantial development in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooperative learning is such a learning method that the students work together to complete the shared goal. It can not only help the students improve their study, but also can cultivate their critical thinking skills; self-respect, self-confidence and social communicative ability. It embodies the human-oriented education thought.In order to explore the effects of cooperative learning in the exercise classes in senior English teaching, the author chooses two classes in Haicheng Senior High School to carry out the experiment. Both of the two classes are in Grade One. Class Nine is chosen as the experimental class and Class Eleven as the controlled class. Cooperative learning is applied in all the exercise classes in Class Nine, while Class Eleven is taught in the traditional way. Instruments such as questionnaires, tests, interview as well as observation are used. The experiment lasts for 18 weeks.The result of the experiment shows that the general atmosphere in the exercise class becomes much more enjoyable and relaxing than before, which accordingly raises the students'enthusiasm for English learning. Students can boost their confidence in the future study, especially for those who like study English but failed in the English examination. Through the practice of cooperative learning in the exercise classes, the students make much improvement in grammar and writing. Accordingly the students'psychological traits and social skills are also significantly enhanced. As a new teaching method, this approach enables students who learns English well, or who can quickly adapt to the new teaching methods enjoy a lot from it. All in all, the cooperative learning is suitable and effective in the English exercise class.Due to the limited knowledge of the theory and actual teaching practice, there are still many unsolved problems, which call for teachers and researchers'attention and endeavor for the further research.