A Case Study Of Dynamic Group Teaching In Elementary English Class And Its Effect On Pupils’ Affect And Attitude In Learning

Group teaching is the most common form of cooperative learning in pedagogy. And it has great influence on education from the following aspects: firstly, it promotes the shift of educational value from teacher-centered to student-centered; secondly, it focuses on learners’ individual differences; thirdly, it brings active classroom teaching atmosphere which facilitates communication and interaction between teachers and students and improves the teaching outcome.Due to the influence of such Chinese national conditions as large population, unbalanced distribution of educational resources and qualified teachers, and the shortage of teachers in remote areas etc., in the majority of schools across the country exclusive of inshore developed cities, the forms of the current classroom teaching are still basically given priority to large-class teaching, which has many shortcomings and hinders the improvement of teaching efficiency. Under such circumstances, group teaching can optimize large-class teaching to some extent.This study,based on the English Curriculum Standard for the Compulsory Education of the People’s Republic of China(2011 edition), aims at investigating the situation of dynamic group teaching in the current primary English classroom and attempts to find out the effects and relationship between dynamic group teaching and pupils’ English learning affect and attitude.The procedure of data collection lasted for one semester. Participants were students from Grade Five and English teachers from the Experimental Primary School in Xiaogan of Hubei Province. Quantitative research method mainly directed the research design. Teaching experiment was conducted to collect research data together with questionnaires, classroom observation and interview.All the questionnaire data were analyzed in SPSS 20.0 in 95% confidence interval. Cronbach’s alpha, Descriptive Statistics, Independent-Samples T Test, Paired-Samples T Test as well as LSD from One-Way ANOVA were performed during the data analysis.This research found that there are two frequently-used patterns of group teaching: gender grouping and seat grouping. Gender grouping and seat grouping can be simply operated and they consumed short time. Since they can balance the students’ number and are frequently used in the context of speaking, sentence or dialogue practice.The teachers of English in primary schools are interested in both gender grouping and seat grouping pattern. In classroom observation, in the group teaching activities of reading and competition, the effects are very good(above 80% students have active participation and high enthusiasm); in the group teaching activities of practicing sentences and dialogues, the effects are moderate(60% of the students have active participation). In teaching activities of practicing sentences and dialogues, reading words, role-playing, and rushing to answer or competing, gender grouping is the most popular pattern among students. In the teaching activities of practicing sentences and dialogues, and reading words, the pattern of two partners as desk mates, or the front row or the back row mates is the most popular pattern among boys and students at the medium level while gender grouping is the most popular pattern among girls, top-students and academically poor students.Dynamic group teaching has obvious effects on improving students’ interest in English learning, especially among girls, the students attending some classes in training agencies, the only-child students, the non-left-behind students and the students who performed poorly in exams; dynamic group teaching brings benefits to help students better understand the external motivations in English learning; dynamic group teaching is remarkably beneficial for helping the left-behind children develop their confidence as well as the only-child students to build up their cooperative spirit in English learning.This study hopes to draw more teachers’ attention to the dynamic group teaching and pupils’ English learning affect and attitude which definitely promote the current development of English teaching and learning in elementary education.