A Study On The Effective Application Of Group Cooperative Learning In Junior High School English Class

Along with the fast development of English language instruction, group cooperative learning method is adding its appeal to many English teachers in junior high schools. Compared with the traditional teaching method, group cooperative learning has advantages as open teaching mode, harmonious atmosphere and all-round development of learners. It can not only cultivate learners’ autonomy, but also help them to be aware of the importance of teamwork and improve their social skills. When applying cooperative learning during the teaching process, teachers first purposely divide learners into several heterogeneous groups, then provide them with some interesting group activities which fit their characteristics of mentality and age. These activities can trigger learners’ interest, help them understand the teaching materials and promote their ability of learning knowledge in groups. After accomplishing the activities, teachers will evaluate or reward learners according to their groups’ overall performance, which can raise learners’ collective sense of honor.With obvious merits, junior high school English classes begin to widely adopt this cooperative learning model. However, in the current practice there still exist quite a large number of shortcomings. Some theories are not well understood, and some applications are just formalized. As a result, this research exerts to dig out the problems during teachers’ application of cooperative learning, factors which have a great impact on its effectiveness, then provide some practical suggestions. The research participants in this research all come from Luxiang Middle School, including 150 eighth grade students and 5 experienced English teachers. In the course of research, the author always adheres to the principle of combining theory and practice. She refers to the research results abroad and at home, considers the specific situation of Luxiang Middle School, and finally utilizes three instruments such as questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. The research finds that main problems in group cooperative learning include teacher’s lacking of a proper understanding of their roles, unscientific grouping, students’ lacking of basic cooperative skills, inappropriate design and use of goals and activities. In order to prevent these problems, teachers can attempt to control factors which affect cooperative learning’s effectiveness. And results of questionnaire show that these factors have a great effect:grouping, length of time, teacher’s role and so on. Based on the research results, the author provides some suggestions to teachers. The suggestions include building reasonable groups, designing appropriate goals and activities and so on.However, restricted by author’s knowledge and objective conditions, this research still have many aspects need improving. Some research results may be unilateral and sometimes they can’t reflect the real situation. But despite these shortcomings, this research could be generally seen as a successful attempt. The results have reference value for the application of this model in junior high school English classrooms.