Application Of Cooperative Learning In Senior English Teaching

Cooperative learning, adopted by many countries in the world, is a creative and effective teaching methodology. Students benefit from it and obtain higher academic achievement. Other benefits include improved social skills, higher self -esteem, greater use of higher-level thinking skills, and increased appreciation for different points of view. Therefore, cooperative learning is believed to be'the most significant and the most successful teaching reform'.National Educational Department has promulgated a new national curriculum for senior English teaching. The new curriculum focuses on learners'interest, experience and cognitive development and advocates learning through experiencing, practicing, participating and cooperating in order to develop learners'autonomy and cooperative skills. It also plays an important role in the research on the application of cooperative learning in senior English teaching, which is expected to change learners'way of language learning.The author in this essay analyses the elements and advantages of cooperative learning, and points out a set of activities and models in applying cooperative learning to develop learners'autonomy ability and cooperative skills, for example, Student Teams-Achievement Divisions , Learning Together, Teams-Games-Tournaments, Group Investigation Team- Assisted and Individualized Learning ,Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition. The author also repeats a case study and the results in application of cooperative learning to senior English teaching, At last, some possible problems in the process of application are analyzed and some strategies for facilitating cooperative learning for language learning are suggested.