Application Of Cooperative Learning To Improve Student Involvement--Jigsaw Method

Oral English is the weakest point for Chinese English learners among the four abilities of English (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Many students, especially college students, often complain that they cannot communicate freely in English even although they have a large vocabulary and good command of grammar. It has been found that there are many problems in oral English teaching in colleges. Traditional teaching model and passive participation of students are the main problems, which lead to low efficiency of oral English teaching and poor performance of students’oral English.In order to improve the low involvement of students in college oral class, cooperative learning approach is applied in this research. The study begins with a summary of previous studies on student involvement, and then goes on to present the reasons why cooperative learning is efficient in improving student involvement from different perspectives, namely, social interdependence theory, motivation theory and second language acquisition theory.Moreover, to explore an effective technique for the implementation of cooperative learning, a method for teaching oral English, called "jigsaw method", is introduced. This paper goes on to discuss the research of the jigsaw method, including the invention and development of the jigsaw method and its essential principle—information gap.However, most of the studies on the jigsaw method are related to students in reading classes in middle schools, and there is little research conducted in college oral class. For the purpose of investigating whether cooperative learning and the jigsaw method can contribute to improve students’ participation in college oral class, an explorative experiment lasting fifteen weeks is carried out with non-English majors as the subjects in two natural classes. Class1is the control class where traditional teaching method is employed, while Class2is the experimental class where the jigsaw method is used. The specific steps of this method are revised to make it more practical and feasible on the basis of previous studies.The instruments used in the study consist of a questionnaire, observation and interview. The questionnaire intends to find out the differences of student involvement in oral English class. The classroom observation aims at observing students’ actual performance in classroom activities so as to investigate whether students’ responses to the questionnaire on students’ perception of their classroom involvement are factual. The interview tries to find out the students’ perception of and comment on the jigsaw activity and what other problems might exist during their learning process.According to the collected data and analysis of the questionnaires, observations and interviews, the results indicate that students in the experimental class show a more active involvement than students in the control class in oral English class. Therefore, the cooperative learning proves to be feasible and the jigsaw method proves to be an effective technique to improve student involvement in oral classroom activities, increase students’ learning motivation and enhance their cooperation with classmates.The pedagogical implications of cooperative learning and the jigsaw method are put forward to serve as a guide to improve the efficiency of oral English teaching in colleges. Besides, some limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are also pointed out.