The Application Of Cooperative Learning In English Classroom In Senior Middle Schools In Minority-Gathering Areas

With the development of science and society, the world extremely needs the spirit of cooperation, and learning to get along with each other become the basic quality which is essential for the people in the 21st century. With the advance of another curriculum reform, to develop students' integrated language skills and ability of listening, speaking, reading, and writing by means of cooperative learning is becoming more and more important. By setting up all kinds of cooperative activities for students , they will be able to help and learn from each other and gain a sense of honor and success, and thus develop the spirit of cooperation. Currently, as a kind of leading learning style, cooperative learning has been more and more widely applied in student-centered teaching practice, becoming a breakthrough and complement to the traditional teaching style. Meanwhile, the study and application of cooperative learning is still at primary stage in senior-middle-school English teaching. However, cooperative learning hasn't gotten widely spread in senior-middle-school English teaching in minority-gathering areas for the lack of effective patterns and strategies which fit in with the practical subject instruction,. According to the author's document examination of 1990-2002,the research outcome on cooperative learning in senior-middle-school English teaching in minority-gathering areas has not found yet. So, guiding cooperative learning into senior-middle-school English instruction in the areas is the urgent need of English instruction reform at present. The aim of this study is to inquire the application of cooperative learning in minority-gathering areas, involving the teaching patterns, the implementation of the teaching patterns, the evaluation of the students' act and achievement and non-intelligence, and the problems the teachers meet in the implementation. The study has been done in Class 169,Hechi No.1 Senior Middle School, and there are 56 students in the class(30 boys and 26 girls).Of all the students there 19 of Hanzu,18 of Zhuangzu,3 of Yaozu ,7 of Mulam, 6 of Maonanzu and 3 of other different nationalities. In this paper, the author makes more systematic and deep-going research on cooperative learning in senior-middle-school English instruction from six parts: Part One: Introduction. Fostering the cooperative idea and spirit is becoming an appeal of the modern times, also an appeal of the development of science and society, and the great need of the current curriculum reform. The practice of cooperative learning in English classroom is the important means by which the students' English-learning way can be improved, and also is an effective approach to foster students' cooperative idea and spirit. In this part, the possibility of carrying out cooperative learning in English classroom in minority-gathering areas is raised in accordance with the characteristics of the students, the effective English classroom, and the introspection to tradition in the minority-gathering areas and English teaching. Part Two: the theoretical basis of cooperative learning. The author systematically expounds the five theory-perspectives relevant to cooperative learning and analyzes the features, the advantages, the types , the methods and the research situation of cooperative learning .And then the theory can be provided for practice. Part Three: implementation of cooperative learning in English classroom in the areas. This part is the important part of the essay, the author holds reasonably organizing students into groups is the premise of successful implementing cooperative learning, making positive interdependence relation is the essence, the teacher's intervening, supervising and controlling is the necessary condition, and creating positive classroom is the key point to implement cooperative learning successfully. It also includes the basic situation of the reform practice, three sample classes, and evaluation and introspection.Part Four : results from teaching practice. By means of interview, a students' que...