A Feasibility Study Of Cooperative Learning In Vocational English Teaching

In recent years, the situation of vocational English classroom teaching is not very optimistic. On one hand, the basic capabilities of most vocational students are relatively weak. Their attitude towards English learning is not correct, and their enthusiasm and initiative of learning English is also not enough. On the other hand, most of the teachers still use the traditional lecture-based teaching mode, which makes the spoon-feed classroom so boring that the students have to accept English knowledge passively, as a result, their learning enthusiasm and activity is greatly reduced. Cooperative learning is a creative and effective teaching theory and strategy developed in the United States in the1970s, and made substantial progress in the mid-1970s. Cooperative learning is student-centered based on the theories of motivation, development, social cohesion, constructivism, etc. It emphasizes on the construction of knowledge, two-way communication and active participation of students. At the same time, it pays attention to interpersonal relationships, and respects personal views and opinions of others, also emphasizes on both the process and the results, stimulates students’ creativity and lively imagination. In order to improve the status of vocational English classroom teaching and make vocational students learn English well, this thesis focuses on the feasibility research of applying cooperative learning in vocational schools English teaching and analyses the barriers for vocational students’English learning, as well as the effects on vocational students’ English learning. The main work is as follows:This thesis presents a student English learning questionnaire and distributes them to students to fill in before and after the classroom teaching based on cooperative learning strategies, and then compares the students’ learning interest, cooperative spirit and sense of group honor, etc., so as to do the qualitative and quantitative research of the feasibility of using cooperation in vocational school English teaching.It also designs a teacher interview to study the feasibility of cooperative learning from the perspective of teachers. In addition, it observes the English classroom teaching of Nanning technical school of water resources and electric power, to further understand the current status of vocational English classroom teaching, as well as to analyze the cooperative learning strategies applied in those processes. In order to study the effect of cooperative learning, the thesis also conduct a classroom teaching based on cooperative learning for a semester and designs a series of content, form, grouping, learning processes of the cooperative learning course. We’ll take unit2as an example and present it in the appendix III.Based on the experiment results mentioned above and development theory, constructivist theory, we get the following conclusions:cooperative learning can improve students’English learning interest, cultivate the students’cooperation spirit, competition consciousness and sense of group honor. However, as a teaching strategy, it is not omnipotent although it has many advantages. It cannot completely replace other teaching strategies and methods. It also has its own limitations:on the one hand, it is constrained by the teachers’ attitude, because not all teachers are willing to try new teaching methods; on the other hand, it is affected by students, for the implementation of cooperative learning needs students’support and cooperation; In addition, the implementation of cooperative learning also needs the support of schools and the country, so as to ensure the training of teachers and teaching fund. This thesis hopes to play a reference for the reform of vocational English teaching.