Application Of Cooperative Learning To The English Teaching In High School

The different junior middle schools that the students come from and the limitations of the students'quality in the senior high school have caused a lot of difficulties in English teaching, especially in the teaching to the students in the non-key high school. Various reasons have contributed to this situation, such as the students'attitude toward the English study, the traditional teacher-centered teaching method and the unbalance among the students themselves. However, the students in the non-key high school still have the ability to learn English well. The key problem is to find out a teaching method that is appropriate for them.In this thesis, cooperative learning (CL) is put forward as an appropriate approach to improve the students'English. This study was undertaken to find out:1)How can we apply the theory of cooperative learning to the practice of English teaching?2) Can the method of CL improve students'academic achievements?3) What are the problems involved in conducting cooperative learning in the high school English classrooms, and what are the possible reasons and solutions?To answer all these questions an experiment was done with two classes, one is the experimental class with 41 students and the other is the control class with 51 students. The experiment was conducted to find out whether there is any difference between these two classes with the method of CL in the experimental class while the control class was under the traditional method. Questionnaires, pretest and posttest were employed to get the statistics and explore the possible problems in the process of CL .Both qualitative and quantitative designs were adopted in the study. Frequency analysis was done with the data of questionnaires and analysis was done with the data of pretest and posttest through t-test.The results of the study show that teachers can apply the methods of TGT, LT, GT and Jigsaw to the practice of listening, speaking, reading and writing in high school. The results also prove the effectiveness of CL in improving students'English achievements. However, because of the influence of the traditional teaching method, the students'limited English proficiency and the teachers'professional competence, various problems turn out, such as the unbalance of time-allocation among students when having activities, the lack of individual capability and autonomy, the influence of students'former learning habit, and so on. To solve these problems, the author offers suggestions for the teachers and recommendations for applying cooperative learning in the high school. The author thinks that teachers serve mainly as consultants and supporters in the process of cooperative learning. In practical teaching, it is the best way for the teachers to combine CL with the other teaching methods,making the best use of the advantages of different kinds of teaching methods to reach the best teaching effects. When students are making speeches, they should encourage them to go on speaking rather than interrupt them from time to time to correct their mistakes. Besides, the teacher should take the following into consideration: group size, group leader and students'feedback. They should also use teaching materials properly and monitor the process of students'activities to make sure these activities go on smoothly.