Cooperative Learning In EFL Teaching For Art Students In Senior Middle Schools

Due to the social requirements of art majors, there have been a growingnumber of art students attending to the College Entrance Examination inrecent years. However, the ones who concentrate on learning the art majorsare accustomed to underestimate the importance of the general curriculum.Furthermore, the activities and art training of art classes occupy too muchtime, which makes them barely focus on the general courses. English is one ofthe most important subjects in senior middle school. Because of the fact thatthe art students commonly do not have strong fundamental knowledge ofEnglish, they often show their unwillingness of learning English, even someof them give up English tests. It is English teachers’ responsibility to find thesolutions and address this issue. In the1970s, an educational theory, as well asa strategy, called cooperative learning initiated in the USA. And theeffectiveness and efficiency of this method is approved by a large number ofprofessional scholars and experts. It is a creative attempt to utilize the methodinto the English education of art students, which is the main idea of this paper.The content of this paper is mainly divided into four parts. The part ofintroduction has presented the current English learning situation of artstudents. Based on this, we can conclude that it is urgent for the teachers toseek a suitable way of English teaching for these learners. Hence, thecooperative learning is introduced. In the part of literature review, thedefinition of cooperative learning has been precisely bounded. By theretrospections of the domestic and international researches, the currentprogress has been shown. Meanwhile, the theoretical foundations have beenprovided. The research design and methodology is the crucial part of thispaper. Two hypotheses have been put forward. For one thing, cooperativelearning can improve art students’ academic performance outstandingly inEnglish. For another, cooperative learning can change their attitude oflearning English from being passive to being active. The author, who is one ofthe English teachers in Baogang No.1middle school, decided to use the100 students of two classes in Grade3as the subjects of study. For the latercontrast, the students of17th class have been treated as experimental students,whereas the ones in19th class have to accept the traditional education. Interms of the investigation, we mainly used questionnaires, tests andinterviews. After the three months’ experimental education of, the data haveeventually been collected and analyzed. In the part of the conclusion, we cansummarize that the cooperative learning method can help the students changetheir attitude of learning English from being passive to being active inexperimental group. However, the academic performance of art students inexperimental group was not outstandingly higher than that of ones who are incontrol group. The reasons are listed in this part.Above all, there are progress and problems coexisting while proceedingcooperative learning. More explorations and improvements are required infurther studies.