The Application Of Cooperative Learning To English Listening Instruction In Vocational Colleges

The English-major in vocational colleges aims at training students to beapplication-oriented talents who are also good at English. Therefore, it is essential forstudents to have a good command of listening and speaking. Student-centeredteaching patterns should be constructed.Constructivism holds that the essence of learning is to construct newknowledge based on learners’ existing experience and knowledge. Constructivismalso recommends cooperative learning, which is a mutual-aid learning that makesstudents in heterogeneous groups accomplish common tasks and earn their rewardaccording to the achievement of the whole group. The research on the combinationof listening and cooperative learning is done in this paper.The study, which is under the guidance of constructivism and makes use ofcooperative learning model, lasts for one semester. This research is carried out in theauthor’s two parallel Business English classes in The City Vocational College of Jiangsu.One of the classes is appointed as the experimental class and the other one as thecontrol class. Three kinds of research methods——test(pre-test and post-test),questionnaire survey and interview are used. During the experiment, students in thecontrol class are taught in the traditional way, while the experimental class isorganized and taught in the form of cooperative learning groups. After one semester,the data collected from the experiment proves that the experimental class doesobviously better than the control class. Students show much more interest inlearning and actively participate in class activities. Classroom atmosphere becomesbetter. The relationship between teacher and students is strengthened, and so is therelationship among students. Awareness of self-reflection and self-evaluation is alsoraised. In the end, some advantages, problems, limitations and recommendations forfurther research are summarized.