An Empirical Study Of Cooperative Learning In Senior English Teaching

The English Language Curriculum Standards for Senior High School states that "Teachers should try to activate and strengthen students' interests throughout the teaching and learning process. They should also encourage students to develop intrinsic motivation for English learning. Students should be willing to cooperate with others to gradually develop a harmonious and healthy character." In the process of cooperative learning activities, students can demonstrate a strong collaborative spirit, and show a willingness to share various learning resources with others. Thus, guided by the thought or the theory mentioned above, a lot of teachers tried applying the theory of cooperative learning to classroom teaching, for example, organizing small group activities in the spirit of theory. Doubtlessly, they have made some achievements and accumulated some successful experience. Yet, in doing some activities of cooperative learning, more often than not, more formality than effect; the students' participation is unbalanced;, Chinese is used more than English. It looks as if most of the research results were mainly based on theories instead of practices. Besides, there have been fewer researches on cooperative learning done after class than in class.The present thesis is mainly based on an empirical study done in the two classes the author teaches. The study tried to look for solutions to the problems emerging during the practical teaching by organizing students to collect and report the information on the topic tasks. In the study, the author put forward three hypotheses: (1) we can effectively solve the problems mentioned above by group activities after class to collect and report the information on the topic tasks; (2) This group activity can inspire the students' interests in learning English and their enthusiasm in participating activities in class; (3) This cooperative learning group activity can cultivate the students' abilities not only to analysis and solve the problems but also to hunt for the information using the modern methods; It can train students' cooperative spirits.The results of the empirical study proved our hypotheses that we, to some degree, can solve some of the problems emerging in the cooperative learning in class by applying the Cooperative Learning Theory to out-of-class group activities; The reports of the information collected on the topic tasks in their group activities after class have improved the students' personal attitudes towards their learning, increased their motivation for English learning and enhanced the students' interests and efficiency in the group work in class. The empirical study has also helped students to develop their team spirit and cultivated the learning ability to do some research on the subject topics. At the same time, from the study, we have found that the main problems the students often faced in doing their cooperative learning activities are: One was that it was too difficult for them to find enough time; the other was that they found it a lot of trouble editing and processing so much different information. The empirical study also reminds us teachers that with the advancement of the time we should have affinity with the students, be good at communicating and cooperating with the students in order to do our job better.