A Study On The Application Of Cooperative Learning To The Transformation Of Junior Middle School Students

As an important teaching strategy, cooperative learning can not only stimulate the learning enthusiasm of students, but also cultivate the team-work spirits and interpersonal skills of the students. As there are more students with learning difficulties in the class taught by the author, she wants to conduct the practice research of transforming students with learning difficulties by applying cooperative learning theories and teaching strategies in English language teaching so as to mobilize the nonintellectual factors and improve the English academic achievements for the students with learning difficulties.In the paper, the author selects a class in Grade9led by her as the experimental class and takes the students with English learning difficulties (Their academic records rank the bottom20%in the class) in the class as the experimental subject. First the author analyzes and studies the current situation of their English, regarding learning motivations, interests, habits and methods of students with English learning difficulties through questionnaires and interviews. After that, the author confirms the transforming strategies of cooperative learning that are suitable for students with learning difficulties in the class according to the theories and teaching strategies of cooperative learning. The teaching strategies of cooperative learning adopted in the study include mutual preview method, interactive learning activity, mutual review method and student teams and achievement divisions which are respectively applied to preparations before class, the cooperation and communication in the classroom, consolidation and review after class and the English evaluation ways on the students with learning difficulties. Subsequently, the author gathers, sorts out and analyzes the questionnaires, interviews and data of students with learning difficulties to prove whether these strategies are effective to transform students with learning difficulties.Several months’practice research proves that cooperative learning is able to efficiently mobilize the nonintellectual factors of students and improve the academic achievements of the students with English learning difficulties. The study can provide other English teachers in junior high schools with some effective methods of cooperative learning in transforming students with learning difficulties. For this reason, the study hopes that more English teachers will study this type of subject, help more students with learning difficulties to change their attitudes towards English learning, stimulate their interests in learning English and rebuild their confidence in learning English.