A Survey And Analysis Of Student-student Interaction In Elt Of Junior Middle Schools

Student-student interaction sprigged from America in1970s, and then was spread to Canada, Englandand Germany. According to Johnson, student-student interaction is not assigning a job to a group ofstudents where only one student does all the work but the others write their names on the paper. It is alsonot making students sit side by side at the same table to talk with each other when they do their individualassignments as well. It is also not making students do the task individually with instructions, and then theones who finish the task first are to help the slower students (Johnson,2005). On the contrary,student-student interaction is a teaching strategy in which small teams, each one with students of differentlevels of English ability. It provides a variety of learning activities to improve students' understanding of asubject. Each member of a group is responsible not only for learning what is being taught but also forhelping other members learn, and then creating a friendly atmosphere of achievement. Students workthrough the assignment of one task until all the group members understand and complete it successfully.Aiming at avoiding the disadvantages of the traditional teaching, the student-student interaction putsimportance on the interaction among the students. It advocate the dominant role of the students, anddevelop a teaching structure characteristic by the students' dominant role, which advocates the teachinggoals can be reached by the group work and pair work, and harmonize the development between thepersonal and the community.From2000s, student-student interaction is becoming more popular in the English class in our country.There are two models in student-student interaction: pair work and group work. Pair-work is always twostudents in one group to complete the task through interaction, and group work is always more than twostudents in one group. It has many advantages; however, there are some problems in the implement in theEnglish class.After four-month listening to class, classroom observation and interview in four top-classes of GradeEight, the researcher found there are three main problems: first, in the class, the researcher found they werenot active to finish the group work; second, when finishing some interesting tasks, students seemed veryactive, but at last, the tasks are not finished very well; third, low-achievement students wanted to askhigh-achievement students some questions, but they were refused.According to interview of teachers and students, the researcher finds out the following reasons: the reasons from students: first, diffusion of responsibility; second, lack of plans in group activities; third, lackof fair study competition between students or groups; fourth, avoidance of the difficulties. The reasonsfrom teachers: first, subjective and one-side teaching evaluation and lack of the appropriate evaluation;second, lack of guiding about cooperative skills; third, inappropriate principle of grouping; fourth, lack ofclear task.At last, the researcher gives some suggestions to teachers and students. There are some suggestions tostudents: to appreciate the successful student to help him find the sense of achievement; to encourage thedepressed student to respect them; to wake up inferior students to help him find himself; to take good careof the students who often makes mistake to inspire him; to compose the group with the principle of"heterogeneous between groups, homogeneous in a group. There are some suggestions to students: to askhelp in time; to cultivate interpersonal skills; to do the thorough exploration after group work and pairwork.This thesis begins with a review of the background of student-student interaction in the commonjunior middle school, the research motivation and objectives and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two of the thesis describes the literature review, including the patterns of interaction, thedefinition and the principle of student-student interaction, differences between the pair-work and thegroup-work, and Vygotsky's Social-Cognitive TheoryIn the Chapter Three, the researcher presents the design of a project including research questions,research participants, research methods and procedures.In the Chapter Four, the researcher mainly points out the main problems and the reasons causing theseproblems of the student-student interaction in the English class.In the Chapter Five, the researcher gives some suggestion based on the research: At last, the researcherpoints out the limitations and prospects of the research.