A Study Of EFL Teachers' Cooperative Learning In An Online Professional Learning Community

From the enactment of the Guidelines for College English Teaching(2014,Draft Version)to the implement of Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Teaching Staff in the New Age(2018),the professional competence and quality of teachers have always been a public focus.The Opinions pointed out that university teachers' quality and professional competence required all-round improvement.Therefore,teachers at all levels are aspired to have professional development.Participating in the online professional learning community(OPLC)has become an effective approach for teachers to meliorating their professional development.From this perspective,the English teachers in an OPLC(a QQ group called Foreign Language Education and Technology Research Group)were selected as the subject of the study.Based on the socio-cultural theory,situated learning theory and social capital theory,this study aims to explore teachers' cooperative learning in an online professional learning community so as to solve the following questions: 1)What are the characteristics of teachers' cooperative learning in this OPLC? 2)What are the dimensions that influence the teachers' cooperative learning in this OPLC? 3)How does the cooperative learning in this OPLC influence teacher professional development?In order to answer these three research questions,the English teachers' chat logs of one year in this OPLC were collected and transcribed.Based on the content analysis of Gunawardena(2001),the data were analyzed in terms of theme confirmation and categorization.The major findings are: 1)There were five characteristics of teachers' cooperative learning in this OPLC: positive interdependence,individual accountability,promotive interaction,social skills and individual reflection.2)The teachers' cooperative learning in OPLC was influenced by members' cognition,network relationship and network structure.Among these three dimensions,members' cognition was the fundamental factor.Only when members' cognition satisfied the conditions,member's network relationship would be established and the reinforcement of network relationship would drive the network structure to emerge.3)The cooperative learning in the OPLC influenced teacher professional development on the personal,social and occupational aspect s.Teachers' occupational development is the most prominent aspect among three aspects.This study helped to understand the process of cooperative learning among members in the OPLC,thus attaining the practical significance and value.However,the limitations of this research exist in the following aspects : 1)The research materials were the QQ chat records,but the data collected and analyzed were not sufficient for this study.2)The research tools used in this study should be more diversified to enhance the reliability of the research findings.Therefore,in further study,more research materials should be selected and use multiple research methods are needed to further analyze online professional learning community and teacher professional development.