On The Feasibility Of Cooperative Learning In Promoting Oral English Self-efficacy

Cooperative learning (CL) which was originated from U.S. in 1970s has been one of the creative and effective teaching methods in the world. Compared with competitive learning and independent learning, cooperative learning has showed many advantages. So using cooperative learning to solve the existing problems in EFT and EFL has become a hot issue to study. However many previous studies centered around the relationship between cooperative learning and students' achievements, and rarely around the influence of cooperative learning on students' psychological problems. It is known that the pedagogical idea has gradually changed from the excessive focus of scores to the students'comprehensive development, especially the psychological development. For a long time, it has been paying more attention to the content of English teaching instructions than the psychology of students. In fact, students'psychology, for example, self-efficacy has great influence on the students'English learning in college. Self-efficacy which was proposed by cognitive psychologist Albert Bandura in 1977 is just one concept influencing students'psychological health, which has been paid more and more attention in recent years. Self-efficacy beliefs affect the choices people make, the efforts people expend on activities, the perseverance and resilience people show in the face of adversity.The purpose of this study is to find out the feasibility of using cooperative learning to promote students'oral English self-efficacy. The experimental study was carried out by implementing cooperative learning in oral English class in one whole semester with 134 non-English major freshmen of Zhengzhou University as subjects. The data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, classroom observation, students'reports, and group evaluation. Combining quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis, this study tries to answer the questions as follows:(1) Can cooperative learning promote students'oral English self-efficacy? Specifically, it is to answer:a. Is there any significant difference in the experimental class students' oral English self-efficacy before and after the implementation of cooperative learning? b. Is there any significant difference between the experimental class and the control class in terms of students'oral English self-efficacy after the implementation of cooperative learning? (2) What are the students'attitudes and opinions towards adopting cooperative learning in oral English learning?Through this study, it is found that:(1) The cooperative learning adopted in this teaching experiment can improve students'oral English self-efficacy. After the implementation of cooperative learning, the experimental class students'oral English self-efficacy has been improved significantly, and it exists significant difference between the experimental class and the control class in terms of students'oral English self-efficacy as well; (2) Students have shown their positive attitudes towards cooperative learning. They like cooperative learning, and they hope they could adopt cooperative learning to practice oral English more effectively in the future. In a word, this exploratory study has proved the effectiveness of cooperative learning in promoting students'oral English self-efficacy, and the good results the teacher and students have achieved from the whole semester's teaching and learning also verify the superiority of cooperative learning to certain degree. The success of this study would induce teachers to make deep thinking on the innovation of oral English teaching and push the teachers and students to explore the new approach of oral English teaching and learning and the more effective ways of implementing cooperative learning methods in oral English class.