A Study Of The Effect Of Cooperative Learning On The Optimization Of Positive Learning Emotion And Learners’ Academic Achievement

In the research field of language learning and teaching, Cooperative Learning (CL) isgaining more and more attention. Cooperative learning refers to a system of teaching andlearning strategies which take small groups as the basic form of the classroom structure,requiring interaction among group members engaging in tasks in which all members havesomething to contribute to and learn from other members. Researches on cooperativelearning show that CL has its contributions to improving the overall climate of theclassroom and has potential for providing supportive climate for learning and ampleopportunities for learners to use the target language. That is, CL creates a more positiveaffective climate in the classroom. To be more specific, it is of great importance inreducing anxiety and promoting interaction, strengthening motivation, providing morecomprehensible input and output for and from learners, and eventually increasing learners’self-confidence.Considering the importance of affective factors in English language learning, thisthesis proposes that we should make full use of cooperative learning to develop learners’positive affective factors in English teaching so that learning process can be greatlyfacilitated. In a deeper sense, cooperative learning incorporates the balanced goal ofdeveloping learners affectively, cognitively and psychologically into the foreign languagelearning and teaching process, therefore facilitates the holistic development of a person.This is in accordance with the quality education that is going on in our country. This thesisintroduces how to incorporate cooperative learning into classroom to improve positiveaffective factors and the effective results are testified by statistical analysis. The author illustrates Cooperative Learning by studying the achievements made in thefield both home and abroad. A general survey is made on the related researches and studiesof CL and learners’ affect. Then it discusses the relationship between cooperative learningmodel and positive emotion of learning English and also the relationship between theoptimization of English learning emotion and academic achievement. Two classes areselected for the writer to carry out the experiment, during which an effective cooperativelearning model is introduced in the experimental class, with students arranged in theheterogeneous group to promote coordinated development of knowledge and positivelearning emotion. And finally, through a comparative analysis of the academicachievements between the controlled group and the experimental group, plus an analysis ofthe questionnaires and an open interview, the thesis discusses the end results of theexperiment, namely, the positive changes in the students’ learning emotion and theiracademic achievements.Through one year’s observation and experiment, the study reveals the following findings:Firstly, group cooperative learning has certain positive effect on the optimization ofEnglish learning emotion. During the process of cooperative learning, the students’learning enthusiasm dramatically rises; the students’ achievement motivation is stimulated;learning English is no longer a passive task but a sure kind of joy and enjoyment for them.Secondly, the optimization of the students’ learning emotion is shown in three aspects: theemotional advantage of excellent students given full play, the positive emotion of mediocrestudents greatly optimized while the underachievers’ learning emotion obviously improved.Thirdly, cooperative learning effectively improve the junior students’ academicachievement as a result of the promotion of the students’ positive learning emotion. In turn,the positive learning emotion improves the efficiency of cooperative learning.To give full play to the advantages of cooperative learning, and train students’ positivelearning emotion, teachers need to constantly improve their theoretical level, change theirteaching philosophy, and improve the educational models in relation to cooperativelearning, establish scientific and effective evaluation mechanism and group operation mechanism, and pay attention to group culture. Cooperative learning builds a bridge to therealization of teaching efficiency and junior students’ learning achievement and learningmotivation.