A Study Of Cooperative Learning In Primary School English Teaching

Cooperative learning has become one of the most focused areas in the field of education.Simply put,cooperative learning means that students are working together to accomplish the learning goals.However,most of the articles about cooperative learning focus on the problems in the process of cooperation and the methods to solve them.The study of the steps and efficiency of cooperative learning in primary school English teaching is rare.From another aspect,the author carried a questionnaire to the teachers in Shaoxing Peixin Primary school.It shows that 55%of English teachers know little about theories and studies of cooperative learning,and only 35%of them think that the cooperative learning is useful.At the beginning of this research,the author studies the basic theories and related conceptions of cooperative learning and also summarizes the recent research findings on this topic at home and abroad.Next,the author recomposes teaching materials,divides groups,sets norms of cooperation and cultivates students' skills of cooperation during the process of research,which lasted for a semester.Then,the author uses a variety of scientific research methods to collect many kinds of data through classroom observation,questionnaires,interview and two English tests.With the help of the forms and statistical analysis,the author makes a detailed comparative analysis on the data.According to experimental results and her own teaching experience,the author's conclusion of the practical steps of cooperative learning is as follows:1)Teachers should divide students into groups according to their characters;2)Teachers should set leaders in the groups;3)Teachers and students should make the norms and skills of cooperation together;4)Teachers should give proper evaluation.All these proved that the teacher uses the cooperative learning in the right way and the efficiency of teaching can rise.After the study,the degree of the students'participation is raised and 90%of students are likely to show in the class and their interests and attitude toward English have changed.At the same time,their listening and speaking abilities have improved so that they like to communicate with others during the cooperation.On another hand,the spirit of cooperation of students is not only in the English class but also in other fields.According to the results of this thesis,the author gives some suggestions to English teachers:1)The content of cooperation should be close to students' life experience;2)Teachers should divide the students into groups before teaching;3)Teachers should set the tasks clearly;4)Teachers should give proper evaluation to the whole groups;5)The cooperative learning should be organized in daily teaching instead of in the public classes.Teachers should learn theories and do more researches on cooperative learning,which will definitely contribute to learning and teaching.