A Study On The Application Of Group Cooperative Learning To English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High Schools

This thesis is an empirical research on the application of Group Cooperative Learning to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.The vocabulary is one of the basic elements of English.It is necessary for students to master a large number of English words when they communicate with others.The effects of vocabulary learning have a big impact on their language skills.The biggest problem for the English teachers is how to make students remember vocabulary effectively.However,it is difficult for students to master vocabulary effectively due to the large number of words and difficulties of memorizing vocabulary.The students are subjects of learning and development.Their self-cognition has reached a certain level when they are in senior high schools.They are curious,active,playful and fond of showing off.To improve the effects of vocabulary teaching,the teachers can make the words live and turn boring activities into interesting practice by using these characteristics.The Group Cooperative Learning emerged in the United States at the beginning of the 20 th century.It has achieved great development in the following decades.At present,this teaching method is becoming more and more popular among various subjects.However,there are not many teaching researches on group cooperative learning to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools.In this paper,the author applies Group Cooperative Learning to senior high school English vocabulary teaching.The author hopes to improve the students’ learning interest,vocabulary use and cooperative consciousness.In this study,the subjects are 96 students from two parallel classes in Grade One.The author divides the two classes into the experimental class and the control class.Each class has 48 students.Class 3 is the experimental class and Class 5 is the control class.The author teaches the control class vocabulary with traditional teaching method and the author teaches the experimental class vocabulary with cooperative learning.The experiment period is one semester.This study is to explore the following three questions:1)What are the effects of Group Cooperative Learning on students’ interest in senior high school English vocabulary teaching?2)How can the Group Cooperative Learning be applied to English vocabulary teaching in senior high schools to improve students’ ability of using vocabulary?3)What are the effects of Group Cooperative Learning on students’ cooperative consciousness in senior high school English vocabulary teaching?To examine the English level of the two classes,the author firstly tests the two classes before the experiment.Through SPSS 20.0 data analysis,it is found that there is not much difference in vocabulary level of the two classes.So the empirical study can be conducted.After the experiment,the author conducts a lexical post-test on the two classes.It is found that the average score of the pre-test of experimental class is 74.29 and the average score of the post-test is 79.14 through experiment.So the average score of the experimental class is improved by 4.85.The average score of the pre-test of control class is 74.50 and the average score of the post-test is 74.77.So the average score of the control class is improved by 0.27.The value of sig.(2-tailed)of the experimental class is 0.000 < 0.05 which means that the students’ vocabulary level of the experimental class is improved obviously through cooperation.The value of sig.(2-tailed)of the control class is 0.322>0.05 which shows that there is no obvious improvement in students’ vocabulary level of the control class.The author conducts two questionnaires on the experimental class and interviews 12 students at different levels of the experimental class when the experiment is over.So the author can get the following conclusions:1)The application of Group Cooperative Learning to English vocabulary teaching can improve students’ vocabulary interest.The students are no longer bored with vocabulary learning.The single teaching method is replaced by flexible group activities.2)The students can improve their ability of using vocabulary through various group activities in the process of preview,class teaching and review.In these activities,the students can use opportunities to practice vocabulary.It is beneficial for them to memorize words and use words.3)The application of Group Cooperative Learning to English vocabulary teaching is helpful to enhance students’ cooperative consciousness.Each group member understands that group cooperation is a necessary condition for common progress.So they exchange ideas with each other and try to understand other students’ opinions.At the same time,there are some limitations in the research subjects and practical experience.But the experiment proves that the students have made obvious progress in vocabulary through group cooperative learning.Therefore,It is successful for the teachers to apply the group cooperative learning to senior high school English vocabulary teaching.