Application Of Heterogeneous Grouping Cooperative Learning In English Teaching

With the expanding of “opening-up and reform” policy, the communicationbetween China and other foreign countries becomes more and more frequent. English,as one of the international language, is a good tool for the communication. LearningEnglish well is a very important task for develop oneself. Then English teachingshould be reformed from teacher-centered pattern to student-centered pattern toenhance their ability to study independently and improve their general culturalawareness.In recent years, the advanced teaching methodologies are introduced into Chinaand influence the reform in Chinese’s English teaching, including the SituationalLanguage Teaching, Communicative Teaching Method and so on. Cooperativelearning, advocated by American professor Johnson, D.W＆Johnson, R.T., is widelyspread and developed in China. It is an approach to organizing classroom activitiesinto academic and social learning experiences. In a heterogeneous group, each studenttakes part in a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject.They help each other, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students workwith the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it.This thesis is based on the Cooperative learning, emphasizing the application of itin the teaching practice and the strategies applied to ensure the application. In thethesis, the author tries to prove that the heterogeneous grouping cooperative learningcan also be applied in the large English class for non-English majors, promoting theimprovement of classroom atmosphere, encouraging the students’ enthusiasm ofparticipation of English class, and improving their academic level. The thesis can bedivided into five parts.The first part of the thesis concentrates on the current situation in the collegeEnglish learning and teaching, which is in the period of bottleneck waiting for thereform. It is of great significance to do the research of applying heterogeneous grouping cooperative leaning in English teaching to ameliorate the situation. In theresearch,4questions of the hypothesis are being explored. And the heterogeneousgrouping cooperative learning is expected to help the students improve themselvesand even mold their personality.The second part is just the literature review. In this part, the definition ofcooperative learning is introduced. It is quite different from the simple grouping work.The five essential factors should be paid attention in application: positiveinterdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, social skills andgroup processing. The group is heterogeneous group. The students of diversity cancooperate better in their task by learning and complementing with each other. Theheterogeneous grouping cooperative learning is based on some fundamental theories:Social Interdependence Theory ensures the positive interdependence of the students ina heterogeneous group and combines the individuals with collectivity. CognitiveTheory boosts the further understanding of the language, better for languageacquisition. Motivational Theory provides the base to create an enjoyable classatmosphere to spur the students in learning. Many strategies can be used in theapplication of the cooperative learning in aspects of improving the English learningabilities, such as STAD, JIGSAW, LT, CIRC and so on. It is proved to be effective andthere are lots of scholars and researchers in China and abroad doing the research toperfect the theory and the practice. These researches still show some deficiency,which need more practice to perfect it.The third part puts emphasis on the reporting of the application of theheterogeneous grouping cooperative learning in class and the solutions to theproblems occurring in the application. In the research, the author chose two classes ofsophomore (144people), all of whom are non-English majors. The students of the twoclasses are similar with each other in their academic level in English. And the researchis about16weeks from the beginning to the end of the semester. During the research,the author employs heterogeneous grouping cooperative learning in experimentalclass and traditional methods in control class. In the teaching practice, some questionsshould be considered carefully: grouping in heterogeneity, the cooperation of the students, the role of the teacher and the activities applied in the class. To test theeffectiveness of cooperative learning, the author also adopts tests, questionnaires, andinterviews to compare the control class and the experimental class and collect the datain the process.The fourth part shows the analysis of data collected and the discussion of theresult. From the data, it is very clear that the students and the teacher really benefit alot from the cooperative learning. In a happy and enjoyable class atmosphere, theteacher feel more quick-witted and the experimental class students reflected to bemore active in thinking and positive in learning. The high-level students and thelow-level students cooperate with each other and improve together. According to thequestionnaire, most of the students are willing to learn in cooperation and benefitfrom it. The scores of the post-test (final examination) proves that the experimentalclass students are superior to the control class students in academic level afteraccepting the heterogeneous grouping cooperative learning. While, because of somefactors such as time restriction, the practice in listening is not sufficient and it is notvery clear in the progress of students’ listening ability.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis. It is proved that heterogeneousgrouping cooperative learning is an effective teaching method, which arouses thestudents’ interest in learning English, promote the communication among them andmold their personality. While it still needs more and further study to help the studentsto improve the language proficiency.