A Research On Task-based Cooperative Learning In Senior High School English Classroom

Cooperative learning was originated in1970s in United States and was introduced to China in the1990s. It has been proved to be an effective language learning and teaching strategy. There are its remarkable advantages in the effective cooperative learning in English classroom. It offers students a relaxing and vigorous learning atmosphere, decreases the students’anxiety, and promotes their motivation and attitude in English learning. However, the implementation of effective cooperative learning is not satisfying at present. There exist many problems, for example, silent phenomenon, imbalanced participation of group members, and unclear division of responsibility among members and so on. All these factors lead to superficial and ineffective cooperative learning.In view of these problems in the implementation of cooperative learning, the author thinks the arrangement of cooperative tasks is the key point from the perspective of English teachers. This research on task-based cooperative learning in senior high school English classroom rests on the basis of the relevant research both at home and abroad, with its theoretical foundation in various aspects including Cooperative Learning Theory, Task-based Language Teaching, Zone of Proximal Development, and Social Interdependence Theory. The author puts forward two research hypotheses that diversified task design and individualized task assignment can motivate students’enthusiasm and make their participation in group activities more balanced, and by optimizing the tasks, the efficiency of group cooperative learning can be improved.In this study, the research subjects are107students and10English teachers from No.2senior high school of Wei Xian in Hebei Province. The author adopts the questionnaire, interview and classroom observation to collect the information and later makes a detailed analysis of the data. The results show that optimizing cooperative tasks is advantageous in arousing students’ interest and initiative in English learning, expanding and balancing the level of students’ participation in cooperative learning, cultivating students’ cooperative consciousness and team spirit, and creating relaxing, active and harmonious classroom atmosphere.