An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Cooperative Learning On Pre-School Education Majors' Oral English Proficiency

With the rapid development and increasing popularity of preschool education,preschool English teaching has been concerned among the public.Effective listening and speaking learning in early childhood can cultivate children's English awareness(Xu Yingguang,2018).Oral English has become one of the main purposes for children to learn English.The teachers' good oral English proficiency is the basis of their teaching for children.Therefore,it is particularly important to improve the preschool teachers' oral English.As an effective teaching strategy and learning method,cooperative learning has been introduced into our country.Since the late1980 s,many domestic researchers have conducted a lot of studies on it.But their research mainly focuses on basic education and higher education;the research conducted at secondary vocational schools is rare,let alone the application of cooperative learning in oral English learning at preschool education normal schools.This study explores the influence of cooperative learning on the oral English of preschool teachers.It covers two research questions: 1.Does cooperative learning have effects on the oral English competence of preschool education majors? If yes,in which aspects? 2.What are the factors that affect preschool education majors' oral English competence in the process of cooperative learning?In order to answer these two questions,the author took 2 classes of grade 18 in Hunan Ningxiang Normal school as the subjects,one is experimental class and the other is control class,and carried out a cooperative learning experiment,which lasted for 16 weeks.The experiment is based on Motivational Theory and Constructivism Learning Theory.Questionnaires,tests,interviews and classroom observations are adopted as the research instruments as well.The findings are: 1.The pre-test shows that before the test,the two classes have no significant discrepancy in oral English competence,while the post-test shows that after the experiment,the students' oral English in experimental class significantly outperform that of the control class,especially in the aspects of accuracy,fluency,task fulfillment and attitude.But there is no significant difference in the aspect of complexity,which shows that cooperative learning has a positive effect on the oral English competence of preschool education majors,especially on the aspects of accuracy,fluency,task fulfillment and attitude,but it has little influence on the complexity of oral English.2.The subjective andobjective factors affect the students' oral English competence in the process of cooperative learning,including their motivation,anxiety,personality,risky spirit,environment and teachers.The findings of the research provide some reference for improving preschool students' oral English teaching and learning.But there are still some limitations in the research: 1.The scope of the testing subject is relatively narrow.2.The design of some individual items in the questionnaire can be more rigorous.Finally,the author puts forward some suggestions on how to improve the oral English of preschool teachers from the aspects of environment,teachers and students.