An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Cooperative Learning On Students’ English Proficiency

Due to the fast development of the society, English has been regarded as animportant foreign language, and the requirement for English proficiency hasbecoming higher and higher. At the same time, the reqirement for the English teachinghas becoming higher and higher, too. In the classroom of English teaching, most ofthe teachers still tend to use the traditional teaching methods, which is not good forimproving the students learning competence. Cooperative learning, as a new teachingmethod, it worth trying.Cooperative learning is a new teaching strategy that it is helpful for arousing thestudents’ interests. Compare to the traditional teaching method, cooperative learninghas many advantages. This thesis mainly introduces the related researches from homeand abroad and the application of cooperative learning in the undeveloped city inGuangdong province. By the detail introduction, the advantages of cooperativelearning are strongly proved. At the same time, many teaching techniques ofcooperative learning would be introduced in this thesis, compare to the classroom oftraditional teaching, those techniques is helpful for activating the classroomautomsphere, and providing the guiding for the successful cooperative learning.The experiment of this thesis was carried out in General Cai TingKai MemorialMiddle School in Luoding City, Guangdong Province.80students attended thisexperiment. The research questions are:1) Is CL in English teaching a better way toraise the students’ English proficiency?2) Can cooperative learning method arousethe students’ interest and promote their learning skills?After two-month experiment, the author of this thesis collected the data andanalyzed results. The results were presented which reveal the implement ofcooperative learning in English teaching. During the experiment, it shows that theacademic score in the experimental class is higher than that in the control class. Itturns out the result that cooperative learning is significantly more effective thantraditional teaching. In cooperative learning, all the members work together in groups to set aims, make plans, collect information and present their opinions. This way oflearning helps the students to develop their abilities in problem-solving andcooperation, it also helps them to improve students’ language competence and buildup their excellent characteristics, such as: activeness, respect, cooperation andcommunication. In the teaching process, students’ interests are aroused and theirlearning emotions are greatly developed. However, problems in conductingcooperative learning can’t be ignored as well. For example, students lack properknowledge and skills for cooperative learning, the solutions to the problems will bediscussed in this thesis.However, there are still some limitations in applying cooperative learning inEnglish class. Firstly, the subjects are from one school of Guangdong province, whichare limited to only80students. Secondly, the experiment just lasted for about2months, the time is not long enough to develop further investigation. Therefore theresult of the study is far from conclusive and further research investigation is needed.