An Action Approach To English Homework In Rural Junior High Schools Based On Cooperative Learning

It is known that extracurricular homework is not only an important part of school teaching,but also a learning task completed by students outside the classroom.It is an effective way to cultivate students' autonomous learning ability,which takes classroom learning as the starting point and takes the use of knowledge as a feature.The new English curriculum standard advocates the learning mode of “experience,practice,participation,cooperation and exchange”.However,in rural middle school English teaching,the content and form of English homework are relatively single,mechanical copying of words and sentences,recitation,dictation,doing exercise papers,etc.These kinds of homework not only can not arouse students' interest,but also makes students' attitude towards homework more and more negative.Therefore,researchers pay more and more attention to how to optimize the design and completion of extracurricular homework.Cooperative learning is an effective learning method to train students' cooperative inquiry ability.And it is worth exploring,practicing,communicating and promoting by researchers to apply cooperative learning to extracurricular homework.According to the current situation and existing problems of English homework in rural junior middle school,based on Cooperative Learning Theory and Zone of Proximal Development Theory,this study applies cooperative learning to the optimization process of English homework through questionnaire,interview,test paper and action research log.This study mainly explores and solves three problems: compared with the traditional way of completing homework alone,how does cooperative learning improve students' attitudes towards English homework,or improve students' efficiency in completing English homework or improve students' English proficiency and academic performance.The author takes 53 Students in a class in Grade eight of a rural middle school in Fuyu,Jilin Province as the research object,and completes the extracurricular homework through cooperative learning.The action research lasted four months.In the process of implementation,the action class is grouped according to the principle of “heterogeneity within the group and homogeneity between groups”.In the form of group cooperation,students are required to complete the listening,speaking,reading,writing,acting and doing tasks assigned by the teacher.The assignments will be displayed in class the next day.Team members are encouraged to make self-evaluation,mutual evaluation and inter-group evaluation.The results of action research show that,compared with the traditional method of completing homework alone,cooperative learning has greatly stimulated students' enthusiasm for learning,improved students' attitude towards English homework,enhanced students' ability and efficiency to complete homework,and promoted students' English achievement.