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Abstract: The thesis firstly introduces the basic concept of cooperative learning from four aspects and then introduces its basic principles; After that, by questionnaire survey，it proves the effects of the cooperative learning on spoken English learning in college. Finally, it introduces the advantages of the cooperative learning over traditional learning method. At last, the thesis comes to a conclusion
Key words: effect; cooperative learning; spoken English learning
摘要: 本文首先从四个方面介绍了合作学习的基本概念然后是操作原则；接着是用问卷调查来论证在合作学习模式下对大学口语学习产生的成效。最后是介绍了合作学习于传统方法相比较下体现的优势。最后是结论。
关键词：影响；合作学习；口语学习
1. Introduction
Communication is the basis of daily life and it is also essential, because it enables people to perceive other information. Language is a bridge which people from different nationalities and backgrounds can communicate. Since Chinas opening up to the outside world, English become a very important foreign language. Therefore, English has become a very important skill for modern college students and graduates. This is why many college students choose English as their major. However, learning spoken English in college is far from enough, because students are learning English for the purpose of passing examinations. Chinese students is prone to test-oriented education. They pay much attention to language forms and grammatical rules, however, little attentions to language abilities and communicative competence” (Zeng Xin 3). The Chinese educational system fails to create an environment among students where students’ ability could be cultivated to communicate in a foreign language and speak naturally in public. As a result, their spoken English is still poor. So there a demand for reforming the spoken English learning model.
“As a creative and efficient oral English teaching and learning model, cooperative learning, which refers to structure of classrooms that students work together in small cooperative teams, is widely adopted by many western countries” (Spencer Kagan 1986). When it is introduce and applied to teach in China, it evokes more positive effects than current teaching methods. Cooperative learning, through interactions and cooperation among group members, provides opportunities for learners discuss and share information. In this process, learners can gradually become autonomous, notion that has become one of the objectives of educations. With a system requiring contemporary teaching reform, cooperative learning is to solve problems in spoken English learning.
2. Cooperative learning model
2.1 The concept of cooperative learning
As Kagan said that nowadays there exist a number of cooperative learning methods. These methods mainly set cooperative interaction as their main practice format, but they differ from each other with various dimensions including philosophy of education, types of learning and cooperation promoted, student and teacher roles and mode of reward and evaluation (Spencer Kagan 1986). Therefore, there are different definitions of cooperative learning. However, according to Drs. Roger and David Johnson, cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to achieve shared goals(Drs. Roger and David Johnson 1997). The students are accountable for their own learning and supporting the learning of the group (Zhang Yang 6). In cooperative learning, students are no longer an individual, but as member of the team. According to Wang Tan, the concept of cooperative learning involves the following aspects:
First, “cooperative learning is a kind of teaching model that is based on group work”(王坦 2003). Johnson (qtd. in王坦 2003 )reported that the highest levels of success occur when groups are kept small. These kinds of groups are combinations of students with different genders, abilities and academic reports，so as to make the groups more flexible and complemented.
Second, “cooperative learning is a sort of teaching and learning activity that takes students’ interaction as the main source” (王坦2003). The cooperative learning model emphasizes the role of students, which have been changed to a positive side. Now, it is the students who express and discuss most in the class while teachers act as guides.
Third, “the cooperative group is set up for common aims” (王坦2003). Necessity is the mother of grouping. Only when the group is given a specific aim that the members would do the work required to compete with other groups. This is also the prerequisite for evaluation.
Forth, “cooperative learning model evaluates students mainly by group performance instead of individual. This mechanism shifts the competition among individuals to groups” (王坦2003). What’s more, it pushes group members to cooperate with each other and exert everyone advantages, so that the group could perform well.
2.2 Basic principles of cooperative learning
Although there are different titles and formats for cooperative learning in theory and practice, they share many common principles.
First of all, there must be interaction in cooperative learning. “The main method in the cooperative learning teaching model focuses on the dynamic interactive teaching and learning” (王坦 2003). The reason why cooperative learning has a high rate of achievement is because of it reinforces creative interaction among students. To encourage students from different backgrounds to communicate and work together is a one of teaching and learning resource. Students could learn how to cooperate and help each other; they could learning from each other’s advantages and disadvantages. Xu shuyan elaborates that in order to promote the efficiency of teach, much attention should paid to cooperation and interaction among group members (徐淑燕 120).
Secondly, all sorts of cooperative learning methods adopt teaching arrangement with a combination of class teaching and group activities. “Teaching ought to consider individualized introduction and collective teaching” (王坦 2003). In traditional English classroom, the teacher was the center, usually gives many lectures and explanations, on the other hand, students have no opportunity to think, discuss together, and speak out. “While in cooperative learning class, students are given most of the time to discuss, to express and cooperate. They are active cooperators and positive participants” (李伟彬 100). This does not mean that the teachers are not important anymore in class. They still have in charge of the class, prevent the students from going too far and out of control. What cooperative learning advocates is the mutual interaction among students and teachers.
Thirdly, the cooperative learning model lays the evaluation on group performance rather than individuals. “The model encourages teachers to use strict criteria for evaluation and a rewarding system to motivate their students to learn. It is the common need of human being to be recognized and praised” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁125). By traditional evaluation method, only few students are always “successful”, and most students believed they will fail. As the end, most students lost their confidences and not communicate with the ones whose “scores” are higher than theirs, which do harm to students’ intellect. While it competes as teams against teams, poorer developed students would not be so nervous and are more willing to develop their abilities, because they do not want to drag the overall performance of the group, and also not want to be the last one in their group. What this model provides is not just competition, but also cooperation and self-development. With the combination of cooperation with competition, it optimize the competition environment.
From what has been discussed above, it is safe to draw the conclusion that cooperative learning model is a better choice for modern teaching and learning. Cooperative learning model pays much attention to the overall development of students’ abilities.
3. The effects on college spoken language learning under the cooperative learning model
3.1 By reasonable grouping, each student gets the opportunity to present themselves “Group division looks like an easy job; actually it is the element that determines the quality of the learning” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁125) There are about 50 students in the English major class in college, and in spoken English learning class time is limited for every student to have the chance to express themselves, so it will greatly reduce the opportunity for students to practise spoken English and it is unfavorable for spoken English learning. However, cooperative learning makes it possible, and under cooperative learning model, the students in a class are reasonably grouped. “Group division looks like an easy job; actually it is the element that determines the quality of the learning” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁125)
And each group is equipped with a group leader, “The group leader will assign the task to every one, which will avoid that the group members to shirk responsibility to each other and will arouse their sense of responsibility to ensure the success of group cooperation." (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁125). The members in the group can express views on their own tasks, and members can comment on others views and give assistance. In this way, it greatly increases the opportunity for students to speak.Through the students individual presentation, their advantages and disadvantages can be learned more quickly and their mistakes can be corrected as quickly as possible, which can improve the efficiency of spoken English learning. The questionnaire survey indicates that 93% of the students think that they get more opportunity to present themselves under the cooperative learning model.#p#分页标题#e#
3.2 Actual benefits of independent use
English learning in college and senior high school is different. In college, students have more leisure time and teachers will not supervise students study everyday. The extra leisure time can complement the insufficient classroom time. "Assign extracurricular cooperative learning tasks. The teacher designs the teaching content into questions and tasks group cooperative learning, including relevant issues on checking each other’s assignment, checking each other’s preparing of lessons before class, separately collecting information on relevant topics and groups cooperation and search." The teacher assigns the tasks to each cooperative learning group, and members of each group are clear of the role that they play and the tasks that they shall take.” （刘凤华4）Eighty five percent students continue to use it after class with their team members. This allows more preparing time, and students are less competent and shy can better finish their assignment and more confident to speak. At that time, the mutual independence is the most important influence on the learner’s motivation. In spoken English learning, groups are formed to help each other to improve the competence to speak frequent and accurate English. In order to achieve this goal, group members not only have to spend time to improve his or her pronunciations and intonation, but also try to help each other. They have to share information and studying material with each other. When they get used to accept comments give by others and give advices to others, they realize their value in and on the group. When it comes back to the survey, eighty percent of the students investigated say they share learning materials and experience with other members.
3.3 Each role plays its own part
Cooperative learning in spoken English learning requires students to play different roles. They may take turns to play different roles such as observer, reporter, recorder, and examiner. In the group, each student would have a special task, everyone must get involved, and no one can shirk responsibility. The success of every individual makes up the success of the group. The study atmosphere should be active as to make the cooperative learning groups more productive. In the group, students of different characteristics, some are shy, and others may be very extroverted. They are mixed together to conquer each others’ shortcomings. For the learning of a foreign language, speaking ranks second just after listening. It shows that input and output are both very important. Role play can both improve students’ input and output. What’s more, role play in cooperative learning also provides opportunities for the shy ones to be the reporter for the group and the outgoing ones to be cautious about trivial.
As a way of encouragement, CCTV holds the English play competitions, which encourages the English learning momentum. Before having a debut on the stage, students have to practice millions of times. “The content of the performance could be some classic movies or Chinese movies that were translated into English, or even the ones produced by students themselves” (戴宝琴and 熊丽琼74). When doing this kind of project, cooperation between group members and competition among different groups are more obvious. While rehearsing the play or a movie excerpt, group members should be patient, associate with each other and willing to face and accept critics. It is a way both to cultivate the manner of cooperation and improve one’s pronunciation and intonation.
A third sort of role play is debate. Debating is a formal learning method. Four students form a group and argue with another group of four students. They have to stick to their group’s argumentation, and try their best to overturn the opponents. Group members have to practice many times so to establish coherence and credibility. This kind is a perfect activity to practice students’ team work and also fluency in spoken English. Students have to be confident at expressing their thoughts quickly while debating. This is a comprehensive way of examine the result of spoken English learning.
3.4 Reasonable evaluation method
Cooperative learning model places its way of evaluation mainly on the group’s comprehensive performance. Unlike the traditional teaching model which judges students mainly by academic records, this model pays more attention to different qualities rather than paper works. There are two ways of evaluating.
One is that group members score their group according to the performance of every group member. The end of the project does not mean the ending of cooperative working. As Ou Lianfen states in her paper that at the end of the project, one group member is required to make some comments on the presentation of other members, find the strong point and try to learn it, for the shortcomings, all of them should try to overcome (欧炼芬88). This is upper level of evaluation of cooperative group work.
The other is the teacher’s comments. Teachers could see many points that students could not observe or notice. In cooperative learning, teachers pay more attention to the overall outcome of group presentation. They would no longer just concentrate on individual student or the most prominent ones. They have to pay attention to overall level of the whole class and figure out some typical mistakes the students make, like some wrong pronunciations, diction and the use of Chinese-English. The teacher would give more constructive suggestions for students to improve. In fact, the final score of English majors of Wenzhou Medical College consists of the students’ self-evaluations and teachers’ judgments, which makes sure the efficiency of cooperative learning.
In cooperative learning, evaluation is a part of encouragement mechanism. To use the criterion and encouragement to adjust the students’ learning process plays a vital role. “However, judging the students properly could evoke students’ study interest” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁125). No matter which method one chooses, the important thing is to let students examine whether they have any progress or not.
4. The advantages of the cooperative learning over traditional method
4.1 It enables the students to think independently
Theoretically speaking, cooperative learning is only a kind of teaching and learning model. However, practically, it is more than that. With the increased use of this model in English learning, the advantages come into being. A survey has been done among the English majors of Wenzhou Medical College to check the outcome the application. According to the survey, ninety one point two percent students express that the application of cooperative learning model does help their think independently than the traditional learning model. Because In traditional English classes, teachers are the ones to instill language into students’ mind, and students only have to listen and keep quiet. In order to make others accept his or her opinions, one student has to express properly, sometimes even negotiate or debate. As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”.
But group cooperative learning is more favorable for students independent thinking. They can share work and cooperate with each other according to their respective ability and expertise to make full of their advantages and learn from each other. The interactions among the group enable everyone to get the opportunity to express their ideas, compare with others, listen to others ideas and feel what others think, which helps students to improve English communication ability.
4.2 It is good for developing enthusiasm
In traditional English learning class, teachers are the dominate ones, while students do not have to be active. As long as they could do well in the paper work they are so-called good students. As a result, students become lazier in spoken language practicing. However, the application of cooperative learning model to spoken English learning requires the participation of every student. “At fist some students may still be unwilling to work hard. But later when they realize they are part of the community, no matter whether they are willing or not, they would finish it actively” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁126). As water flows toward low spot, human walk toward the high place. No one wants to be the black sheep for their group. Forty point seven percent students say the application offers them more eagerness to study so as to catch up with other students. Based on the former cooperation and communication, they make sense of themselves and other members’ advantages and disadvantages. In order not to be behind others, they are more willing to make up for their weak points and keep the strong ones.
4.3 language environment is released
“In traditional English learning class usually create nervous and boring atmosphere which do harm to foreign language learning” (欧炼芬87). But “In cooperative learning teams, the idea of good students and bad students are no longer so serious, every student is equal, and it changes the individual competition mechanism” (邵琳娜, 赵应洁and田 洁126). While in cooperative learning, students are the masters, and teachers are the guides and negotiators, which offer a released atmosphere before students get down to deep discussions. Students feel comfortable staying with the team, willing to open their mouth and express their ideas and the more they talk the more they feel confident.
4.4 It is convenient to coordinate with other methods
The group cooperative learning is convenient to coordinate with other teaching and learning methods, and it can make up for the disadvantages of other teaching and learning methods. For example, adopting cooperative learning after instilling knowledge in traditional teaching can know students’ acceptance and study condition more clearly. Actually the teacher that adopts cooperative learning tend to show more enthusiasm to teaching , pay more attention to students’ creativity and learning efficiency and help students that are less competent to catch up with other students. Moreover, the time usage and control of cooperative learning is more efficient than that of big class teaching. The teaching strategy that adopts cooperative learning in big class discussion and teaching can achieve very good results, and student can gain new knowledge by reviewing old knowledge and practice makes perfect.#p#分页标题#e#
5. Conclusion
So far, as Collins COBULID learner’s dictionary explains that cooperative is a business or organization run by people who work for it, who share its benefits. And cooperative activity is done by people working together. Cooperative learning is a kind of learning model which students learn in a small group consisting of four or five people. The application of cooperative learning model to spoken English learning transforms traditional English learning. Students get their spoken English improved. At the same time, this way of learning motivates students to cooperate and communicate with each other in order to give the best group performance. Students really benefits from the learning model as is proved by the survey done among English majors students of Wenzhou Medical College.
In a word, in cooperative learning, students and teachers should be well coordinated in order to make the use of the application of cooperative learning to improving spoken English and cultivating the competence of cooperation and communication.
Bibliography
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2. Spencer Kagan, “Cooperative Learning and Sociocultural Factors in Schooling” , Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, 1986. 230- 275.
3. Zeng Xin, “How to Improve Students’ Competence in Oral Communication.”, M.A thesis, Center China Normal University, 2000.
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