Cooperative Learning Action Research In English Teaching In Secondary Vocational Schools

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the influence of cooperative learning on students of vocational schools. Research questions included:1. Will cooperative learning enhance students' interest in learning English?2. Will cooperative learning help students in English study?3. Will students improve their oral English through cooperative learning?The thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One gives a brief explanation on the research topic and the outline of the whole thesis. Chapter Two offers literature review that provides theoretical support for the thesis. Chapter Three reports research methodology and research design conducted by the author. Chapter Four offers the results and data analysis. Chapter Five is a conclusion to the whole thesis. In the last chapter, the author also brings up the limitation of the research and gives some suggestions to the further research.The study was conducted in an English course at Beijing Foreign Trade School in the spring semester of 2007. Class one was experiment group while Class two was control group. The method of cooperative learning is used in the experiment group. A mixed research approach was used in this study, such as natural teaching, tests, questionnaires, etc. Various forms of data were collected through tests, questionnaires. By using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, a commonly used tool for managing, analyzing, and displaying data, t-test was conducted.The analysis of the combined data in this research indicates that cooperative learning may:1. Enhance students' interest in learning English;2. Help students in written English study;3. Improve students' oral ability.