Group Cooperative Learning in English Class
Abstract：Cooperative learning is becoming an increasingly popular teaching strategy and it has already been put into the English class. <1> This paper is going to explain what are Group Cooperative Learning and the importance of Group Cooperative Learning in English Class
Key words：group；cooperative learning；English teaching；English class
Group Cooperative Learning in English Class
Facing to various examinations, teachers and schools emphasize competition between students in their teaching. As a result, the students have strong sense of competition but lack of the cooperative sense. They will not care about each other; neither helps each other nor works together. Thanks for the promotion of quality education in schools, cooperative learning is advocated to more and more teaching areas.. It is a model of teaching and learning, which emphasizes student-oriental and students’communication. This emphasis is very important for English teaching.
1.What Is Group Cooperative Learning?
Group cooperative learning means the students, with the guidance of their teachers, work in small grou
ps and receives rewards or recognition based on their group performance. <2> It is a form of classroom teaching that students who are in small groups achieve the learning task by helping each other, interdependence and teachers’guidance to maximize their own and each other’s learning. In cooperative activities, students seek outcomes that are beneficial to both themselves and all other group members. Teaching manner for group cooperative learning is the unity of class teaching and group-activities. Class teaching is the base, and group-activities are the main form. The standard for evaluation of cooperative learning is the achievement of the whole group. Each of the students makes contribution to the group in order to acquire better positive results.
2.The importance of Group Cooperative Learning in English Class.
2.1. Group cooperative learning solves problems better.
Group cooperative learning conducive to solving the complex problems because cooperation between the students is often better than individual effort in the decision tasks and evaluation operations, it is often more effective to develop consensus. <3> Group cooperative learning helps the students to find the problems during working together, no need to be shy, shame or even worried to give wrong answers to the teacher. It’s more open to the students to raise their ideas.
2.2. Group Cooperative learning makes class active.
Refuse being boring in the class, teachers have to make the class more active to attract student’s attention and interest. There are two essential components of using Group
cooperative learning that help to assure the class active.
2.2.1. Positive interdependence to each other in a group. Positive interdependence means that each group member should recognize that if an activity is beneficial to one member; it will be helpful to the whole group. It helps the students to apply this spirit in their further social life also, to help the students to understand the “win-win” rules in the sociality. For example, if one student find the answer, he/she would share with others in group, may collect different ideas of the answers, which would give more explanation or quicker, easier way to the answer.
2.2.2. Individual and group accountability. The group accountability is achievements of the group goals, and the individual accountability is contributions of the member’s share of the work. Each of the group members has responsibility to finish his/her own task and help other group members who need more assistance, support and encouragement in studying. Teachers examine students’accomplishment of their individual accountability by a) giving marks to each group members
and b) asking any of them to report his/her group’s result irregularly.
2.3. Group Cooperative learning emphasizes student-centre.
Group cooperative learning gets rid of the traditional teaching model in which there is only the communication between teachers and students. Communication between students is the emphasis of cooperative learning. It is important for English teaching. Doing cooperative learning in English class can not only impel students’learning activities, but also improve the environment of the class and develop students’personality.
2.4. Group Cooperative learning benefits students in improving their oral English and communicational ability.
In traditional English class, teachers speak most of the time; students just listen and accept the knowledge. Only a few students have chances to speak the target language. Moreover, the students that have the chance in the class only speak according to the model that the teachers set for them. They speak but not communicate. By contrast, a cooperative learning class provided students with much more opportunities to join in communication through the group activities. And the topics they talk about are closed to their daily life. There is no doubt that the students’ability of using English, es
pecially of using oral English is better.
2.5. Group Cooperative learning benefits students for developing their personality. Knowledge can be absorbed and expressed only if the learners do think and practice independently. Whether students accept the knowledge with pessimism or learnt with activism will influence the teaching effect. In traditional English teaching, students depend on teachers too much. They listen to the teacher without thinking; the teacher’s answer is always right and unique. Their personalities are confined in this kind of learning. However, teachers just teach the new language points to students briefly in cooperative learning class. In most of the time in the class, students study
with their group members. Teachers encourage students to help each other to accomplish the task. They no longer criticize and rebuke the students but guide them and give them enlightenment. Students would be free to laugh at themselves by making mistakes. By this way, student’ specific aptitude will be showed completely.
3.How and when to use Group Cooperative Learning in English Class more
effective
In traditional English teaching, teachers train one skill of students only in the reading / oral/ listening/ writing class. However, students’ integrated skills---reading, speaking, listening and writing can be trained with cooperative learning in one class. Students who do reading in cooperative learning class have chances to share their ideas to their group members and the whole class by speaking out, other students’ listening would be trained at the same time. Also ask the students to write down what they heard, students would benefit from the writing skill. Using group cooperative learning activity models is a real way to practice cooperative learning.
Let’s see the difference of the follow two groups’ activities below.
Practice in a speaking training class: comparing group A and group B.
3.1. Teaching material: Unit 57, Intermediate English
Teaching objects: students in two normal classes
3.1. 1.Teaching plan for traditional speaking class.
Teaching aims:
A. Knowledge aims:
1)Students get to know some extreme sports.
2)Students learn some useful expressions.
3)Students can use the expressions to retell the name and description of
extreme sports.
B. Process and method aims:
1)Develop students’ speaking skill.
2)Guide students to find out the useful expressions and use them in some
exercises.
3)Enable students to retell the characteristics of name and description of the
extreme sports with the given words.
4)Get all of the students to join in the class activity enthusiastically by
discussion in smaller groups.
C. Emotion, attitude and value aims: Students know the difference of the extreme sports better.
Teaching contents:
1.The oral English material.
2.Useful expressions and some exercises.
3.Retelling: the characteristics of the strange extreme sports.
Teaching focus:
1.The oral English material.
2.The useful expressions.
Teaching difficulty:
1. Students should understand the questions given by the teacher and from the material.
2. How to guide the students to retell with the given words.
3.1. 2. Teaching plan for group cooperative speaking class.
Teaching aims:
A. Knowledge aims:
1)Students get to know some strange extreme sports and some useful
expressions in the book.
2)Students learn some useful expressions.
3)Students would share the kinds of extreme sports with the picture they
collect before class.
B. Process and method aims:
Students work in pairs and finish different tasks.
cooperative
Task 1: Understand the text and ask some questions according to the text in order to do a good job in the group competition later.
Task 2: Find out and learn the useful expressions together.
Task 3: Walk out the classroom and do some interviews with others in English, ask teachers or students what kinds of extreme sports they’ve tried or they would like to try and why.
Task 4: Present other kinds of extreme sports with the picture that they collect before class.
Task 5: Make a quick presentation according to the interviews, and present in the group.
C. Emotion, attitude and value aims:
1)Students know the kinds of the extreme sports better.
2)Develop students’ ability to study independently.
3)Develop students’ ability to cooperate with their group mates.
Teaching contents:
1.The characters of the new extreme sports.
2.Useful expressions and some exercises.
3.Present other kinds of extreme sports.
4.Students’ cooperation in pair/group work.
Teaching focus:
1.The speaking material.
2.The useful expressions.
3.The students’ performance.
4.The students’ collaboration.
Teaching difficulty:
1.How to guide the cooperative work in the groups.
2.How to persuade the students to speak out and communicate with others with
confidence and freely.
3.How to guide the interviewers to share more information.
4.How to present with the information students collect from the interview.
3.2. Conclusion
According to the two groups, the difference between the traditional class and the group cooperative learning class can be found easily:
a) Differences in teaching aims. The aims of the traditional class are about speaking skills and language skills, while in cooperative learning class, the aims include training students’cooperative skills besides those aspects. That is to say, in the cooperative learning class, students’task is not only to learn the knowledge of language but also to communicate with other students and the teachers.
b) Differences in teaching difficulties. In cooperative learning class, the teacher has to teach students
cooperative skills. How to guarantee that students wish to work together is more significant to the teachers.
c) Differences in teaching process. In traditional class, students communicate with the teacher most of the time. And there is only one manner---ask and answer. Comparing with the traditional class, the atmosphere in the cooperative learning class is more positive, comfortable and active. The pair/group cooperation in this class is not only for the speaking task but also for checking the result of the students’cooperation. Most of the time, students learn by themselves, pre-individual work, pair work and group work. Speaking out is a process of input, this kind of class is better for students to transform the language input into output.
Compare with the differences between these two kinds of classes are caused by their different essential aims. Although group cooperative learning is good for students to improve their communication skills and cooperative ability, teachers must know all the students’ characteristics or they cannot form the groups well. And whether the group members wish to share and work together is the key of the class. Before the class, teachers have to introduce some cooperative skill s to the students, make them believe that they can work together well and finish the tasks. Students’ initiative to learn drives different results of the class.
3.3. The shortcomings of group cooperative learning
The cooperative learning also has some obvious negative points.
1)When the students’ English proficiency disparity is bigger in the group,
good students harvest slightly.
2)Poor students might be hurt and discouraged to learn and speak more
because of their not skillful English or cooperation.
3)Students might not be able to realize and point out the error during the
group learning.
4)Cannot guarantee the students to use English only during discussion and
cooperation.
5)Some of the students might be lack of communication and cooperation
skills, it would drive the teaching plan out of control and effect further
learning and practices.
Facing to the shortcomings mentioned above. Teachers have to learn more how to use group cooperative learning, pay more attention to the guidance of the group activities, giving equal chance to not only top students but also the medium and inferior ones for their expression of their own ideas and encouraging students to give help to each other in cooperative learning groups are needed.
Group Cooperative learning becomes more common an popular in teaching and learning in China. It is different from competitive learning and individualistic learning, but contains these two at the same time. More and more teachers try to use cooperative learning because of its significant in language teaching. However, group cooperative learning cannot be used all the times. Teachers must make teaching plan with the thinking of the personality of their students, the contents they are going to teach, and the classroom they are going to use. Without these elements, group cooperative learning cannot shine. Whether group cooperative learning is used successfully or not, students’cooperative skills are the key point for it. Thereby, another important thing for teachers is teaching students how to wish to cooperate with others. Cooperative and communication skills are learning skills. It helps students learn self-oriental and interest-oriental.
Teachers can develop the theories and active ways of group cooperative learning. With continue practice, they may develop a particular group cooperative learning method, which is suitable for Chinese students and teachers’ own characters.
<1> The Reflection of Cooperative Learning in English Class, 刘果果魅力中国2011年第2期
<2>,<3> Group Cooperative Learning in English Class, 仲卫利

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