论文总字数：29661字

摘 要

在合作化的社会里，合作比以往任何时候都重要。合作是平常的生活和工作模式，并已经延伸至教育领域。 新课改提出教学过程应当是教师和学生之间，学生和学生之间积极互动、平等互助、共同发展的一个过程。 自二十世纪九十年代以来，小组合作学习引入我国，现在已流行于小学中。其主要符合了大班教学的需要，现在小学班级规模大，人数多。它强调组员间的合作与竞争以及学生个性的培养。本文基于笔者在小学的实习经历，主要探讨小组合作教学在我国的发展以及在实践中的问题，并给出解决策略。

关键字：小组合作学习；小学英语；问题；解决策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature review 1

2.1 The Definition of Group Cooperative Learning 1

2.2 The Development of Cooperative Learning 2

3. Theoretical Basis of Cooperative Learning 2

3.1 Group Dynamics 2

3.2 Classroom Instructional Technology Theory 3

3.3 Motivational Theory 3

4. The Significance of Group Cooperative Learning 4

5. Problems in Cooperative Learning in Primary English Class 5

5.1 Neglect of the Differences between Individuals when Grouping 6

5.2 Neglect of Students’ Cognitive Level 7

6 The Application of Group Cooperative Learning 8

6.1 Cultivating the Independence of Individuals in a Group 8

6.2 Balancing the Gap between Individuals 9

6.3 Defining the Role Accurately and Alter the Role Accordingly 10

6.4 Cultivating Team Spirit and Cooperative Skills 11

6.5 Assigning Some Open and Challenging Tasks 12

6.6 Establishing a Diversified Evaluation System 12

7. Conclusion 13

Works cited 14

1. Introduction

The new curriculum reform advocates that the tradition passive reception should be replaced by a new learning approach of self-determination, cooperation and exploration. Since the 20th century, lifelong learning has become a new trend and the passive reception cannot meet the requirements on talent cultivation by current society. Throughout the country, educators from schools are probing into the revolution of learning styles in full swing. And group cooperation learning has been gradually applied into English teaching in schools, which provides students with the opportunity to apply the learning approach of self-determination, cooperation and exploration. Nevertheless, there are some problems with this new learning style, in its initial stage. Based on my internship experience in primary school, I will discuss the existing problems in detail via some teaching examples, and I will also offer some constructive solutions.

2. Literature review

2.1The Definition of Group Cooperative Learning

Group cooperative learning, in different forms, has been used in classroom teaching for a long time. Experts define it in various ways. Elizabeth Cohen broadly defined cooperative learning as “students working together in a group small enough that everyone can participate in a collective task that has been clearly assigned. Moreover, students are expected to carry out their task without the direct and immediate supervision of the teacher.”(28-31) Group cooperative learning is defined as “a set of instructional strategies by which small groups of students to facilitate peer interaction and cooperation for studying academic subjects” (Sharan, 241-271). “More common and more restrictive definitions of cooperative learning, although similar to Cohen’s definition, refer also to the use of techniques that employ cooperative task structures, in which students spend much of their class time working in heterogeneous groups. However, these definitions also focus upon the use of cooperative incentive structures, in which students earn recognition, rewards, or grades based upon the academic performance of their groups.” In spite of the differences in definitions, most experts agree that cooperative learning has two essential characteristics: a cooperative goal structure and individual accountability. To put it more concretely, cooperative learning is the process that groups of students work together to fulfill a learning task cooperatively and work for the honor of their group.

2.2The Development of Cooperative Learning

In fact, cooperative learning has a long history but not under the notion “cooperative learning”. As early as 2000 years ago, Confucius, the greatest ancient sage put forward such an educational thought about cooperative learning as “Whom learning alone without friends will ignorant.” and “Two heads are always better than one.” Comenius also stressed in “The Great Didactic” that “those who teach others teach themselves at the same time.” These great ancient educators share with us their understanding about cooperative learning, which underlies the appearance of this approach. Cooperative learning first sprang up in America in the 1970s and received continuous attention in the 1980s all over the world. As a new learning style, cooperative learning was introduced into our country in the 1980s and applied in some schools. In the new century, as national elementary education curriculum reform was started, cooperative learning has been extensively used in China. Most teachers today use some form of group work in their classrooms.

3. Theoretical Basis of Cooperative Learning

3.1Group Dynamics

Group dynamics most often refers to the scientific study of groups, including the analysis of group structure, group norms, interaction patterns, and group cohesion. Lewin first used the word group dynamics to explain the complex nature of human behavior in relation to other individuals and groups. Educators in our country hold that group dynamics refers to a kind of energy inside the group. It can be analyzed from two aspects. For one thing, members with different levels of intelligence, structures of knowledge, modes of thinking and styles of cognition are complementary. For another, cooperative learning benefits the generation of self-respect emotion. Researchers find that students’ academic achievement is positively related to the level of self-respect emotion based on analysis of a large sum of data.

3.2Classroom Instructional Technology Theory

According to classroom instructional technology theory, there are three factors affecting the quality of classroom learning and the social psychological atmosphere, namely task structure, reward structure and authority structure. Specifically, task structure covers teaching ways and methods and organized form of teaching like class teaching, group instruction and individual learning. Group cooperative learning, in terms of task structure, utilizes group cooperation or heterogeneous group to reach the teaching objectives. Reward structure refers to the utilization of some method to strengthen the outcome of learning activities, which includes types of reward, frequency of reward, acceptability of reward and objects of reward. Group cooperative learning takes advantage of reward structure to stimulate and maintain learning activity. Authority structure refers to the extent to which teachers or students take control of the teaching activities. In traditional teaching system, the class is under the control of the teacher by means of reward and grading. Group cooperative learning is different in that it requires students to utilize the intrinsic motivation and motivation from peers to carry out the learning activity.

3.3Motivational Theory

Motivational theory is the study of renewed or target structure of student activity. Dodge once defined the three types of target structure: collaborative structure, competitive structure and individual structure. And group cooperative learning is closely related to collaborative structure, in which one’s effort towards his goal is conducive to others’ realizing theirs. Under this structure, students encourage each other, consolidating efforts put into studies.

4. The Significance of Group Cooperative Learning

Firstly, it is the requirement of social development. Nowadays society is a society of competition and cooperation. “Learn to communicate” and “learn to cooperate” are the basic requirements that time has endowed on us. Only those who help others and cooperate with others can win a good opportunity to develop. As the saying goes, a fence three piles, 3 to help a hero. Group cooperative learning not only aims to realize the designed teaching goals, but cultivate students’ ability to communicate and cooperate with each other by providing opportunities to work together in a group to fulfill a collected goal, which is requirement of quality education.

The new curriculum reform advocates group cooperative learning. Chinese Ministry of Education issued “English curriculum standards” as an instructive and programmatic document for English curriculum reform. The course objectives are designed for the personality development of students. According to “three development”, “English curriculum standards” clearly states 6 basic concepts: “aiming education for all, implementing quality education; designing objectives integrally, reflecting the feature of flexibility and opening; stressing students’ subject, respecting the individual difference; adopting activities, advocating experience and participation; stressing formative assessment, promoting student’s development; developing curriculum resources, expanding learning channels.” Thus, group cooperative learning rises in response to the realization of these basic concepts.

The characteristics of English learning require a learning approach with more interactions. In China, English is a foreign language rather than a second language for China lacks a language context for teaching English as a second language. Hence, during the process of learning English, for lack of language context, primary school students learn by rational thinking and grasping language rules, which is dull and boring and against children’s nature-lively, active and weak in will. By adopting group cooperative learning, teachers can divide students into several groups, in which students are immersed in studying under the guidance of the group leaders and supervision of others.

Group cooperative learning also helps to narrow the gap between individuals. To begin with, in terms of resources, some students enjoy more resources than others including visible resources, invisible resources and potential resources. To reach the group goal and promote the advancement and development of every member, students have to share their resources in the form of group cooperation. Cooperative learning situations tend to promote higher achievement than do competitive or individualistic learning situations (Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson amp; Skon, 47-62). Meanwhile, due to the difference in personality, educational background, level of effort and learning environment, members in a group differentiate in knowledge and ability. The gap will lead to their lack of communication and teachers’ overlook on the development of underachievers, which in consequence will cause the remarkable improvement of the excellent students but the deterioration of the underachievers. However, group cooperative learning helps to narrow the gap for members work cooperatively to finish a task, which requires every member to improve during the process.

It is an important supplement to traditional classroom teaching system. Group cooperative learning is used in combination with class teaching, which makes the class colorful in forms and active in atmosphere. The adoption of group cooperative learning benefits the improvement of the academic level of the group members, because members in a group can supervise and instruct each other, which is out of reach of class teaching system, teachers unable to pay attention to every student. So the class constituted by several groups gains a better teaching result.

5. Problems in Cooperative Learning in Primary English Class

5.1Neglect of the Differences between Individuals when Grouping

For one thing, students are different in their cognitive levels and cognitive styles. Though in primary English class, students still at an initial stage of learning English, their differences in English language ability are remarkable. However, traditionally, teachers tend to have the students grouped according to their cognitive levels, which consequently leads to the advancement of the excellent students and the deterioration of the underachievers(Zhu Lingxia,2015,01). For example, during my internship in primary school, I found this problem quite common. “Read in groups” or “play in groups” are common activities in primary English class, which are designed to check students’ mastery of the knowledge at the end of the class. When I sat in on an English class in Grade5, they were learning “The king’s new clothes”. During the activity “read in groups”, I notice a boy in the group next to me mispronounce “clothes” while the others in the group did not point it out.

As I mentioned before in the paper, the benefits of group cooperative learning is to get members to supervise others’ mistakes and instruct them. But in this case, because of improper grouping, the assumed benefits are nothing left. What’s worse, the group consisted of underachievers will never realize their mistakes and their academic achievement is going to deteriorate from bad to worse. So when grouping, students’ cognitive levels should be taken into consideration.

For another, students are different in disposition and personality. People are born with different characters, some active and outgoing while some introverted and shy. When grouping, teachers should take full consideration of the differences. A group should be made up of students with different personalities for the sake of successful conduction of learning activities and realization of assumed teaching goals. For example, a group consisted of extroverted students should be worried about disciplinary problems, while a group of introverted students , without disciplinary problems, will probably play the role of bystander throughout the class.

During my internship in the primary school, there was a new student in the class. He was shy and afraid to communicate with others, let alone put up hands to answer the questions that teachers raised in class. But after changing seats, the boy was more active in class and achieved better grades. Wondering in mind, I talked with the head teacher. She said that she seated the boy beside an extroverted and excellent student deliberately, considering that student would help him both in academics and in behaving more actively in class. In brief, grouping properly can secure unexpected results.

5.2Neglect of Students’ Cognitive Level

Some content is not suitable for group cooperative learning,and if rigidly conducted, it will make students unaware of how to communicate and cooperate with each other and the goal can’t be reached. So the assignment for group cooperation shouldn’t be too difficult or easy. On the contrary, teachers ought to raise open-ended questions with multiple answers.

Take my experience as a practice teacher in a primary English class as an example. I was teaching “Drawing in the park” and at the part of presentation, I assigned students to cooperate in group to find the answer to “what are they drawing?” But after my assignment, students buried their heads in books to find the answers and circle them without talking with each other, which is unexpected during teaching plan, leaving me awkward in the front of the class. When class was over, the advisor suggested that questions should be open-ended, and students should have enough time for group work. Adults often underestimate how long it will take children to work things through. However, in reality, some teachers clap to call an end shortly after students begin to communicate, which will dampen their enthusiasm.

Moreover, in order to attain the goal of group cooperative learning and reach the teaching objectives, teachers should make sure that the instructions are explicit enough to be understood. Teachers, from the standpoint of an adult skilled at English, tend to overestimate students’ cognitive ability. However, students, at their initial stage of learning English can hardly understand long and complex instructions, which is adverse to the smooth conduction of group cooperative learning. Also take my experience in the primary school as an example. In an English class, I wanted to utilize a game to lead in and I showed the rules of the game on the screen. And then I asked “now do you understand?” “Yes,” they answered. I strongly believed the lesson would go on in the direction that I had expected. However, it is disappointing that students did not know how to play, which influenced my teaching plan a lot. So, it is necessary to consider students’ cognitive level and make the instructions explicit enough.

6 The Application of Group Cooperative Learning

6.1Cultivating the Independence of Individuals in a Group

From the modern student view, every student is an independent individual, which requires teachers to respect their unique opinions and leave some room for them to sense and explore without interference. Following children’s growth pattern of succession, imbalance and individuality, educators should guide their growth with the proper method according to the characteristics of physiological and mental development.

Teachers play an important role in cultivating their ability to study independently. Teachers ought to make full use of the 45 minutes in class to get the knowledge acquired by students. And meanwhile, they should also pay attention to the personality of every student, according to which teachers select the appropriate teaching method. Most importantly, in order to cultivate the ability to study independently, it is necessary to foster students’ interest in studying, and creativity as well as encourage them to think about and solve problems on their own.

In the practice of English teaching, teachers can cultivate students" ability to learn independently before the class, in the class and after the class. Before the class, teachers assign tasks to prepare for the class, so that students get to know the teaching content. In the class teachers can design teaching activities, so that students bearing the task in mind complete the activities independently or cooperatively. After the class, in addition to the written assignments, teachers should guide students to learn to review the contents learned in the class and to form the ability to reflect and summarize.

6.2Balancing the Gap between Individuals

The difference in the cognitive level should be taken into consideration before, during and after group cooperative learning. Before grouping, heterogeneity also needs to be considered and students with different cognitive levels should be placed in a group. Heterogeneous grouping is vital to many of the pro-social and learning benefits of cooperative learning (Dana amp; Paul, 11). During the process of learning, teachers can encourage students to communicate and interact. After learning, teachers ought to reflect on the drawbacks and highlights throughout teaching.

Students are also different in personality, some strong-minded and outgoing while some introverted and short of personal opinions. And it requires teachers to closely observe students’ behavior and care more about students with extreme personality. Teachers can involve them into group activity such as group cooperative learning and encourage them to communicate and interact with others, seeking fun in collective life.After the groups are formed, group leaders need to be selected to guide the operation of groups.

In the process of group cooperative learning, the critical factor that determines the success of the learning activities is group leader, who bears leadership responsibility. So when selecting the group leader, teachers ought to take learning ability and leadership ability into full consideration. The first principle to be considered when selecting group leaders is that the leader must be top learners. Only top learners can earn respect from other members in the group in terms of academic achievement, lead others to do the preview and review work and have spare time and energy to help and coach others. What’s more, the leader-to-be must have organizing and leading ability. In the process of carrying out group cooperative learning, we often see the phenomenon that members in a group are not united and learning activities are unable to be carried out(Zhao Wenqin, 2013, 66). The reason is that the leader lacks the indispensable leading ability. Once the leader selected, teachers need to cultivate them. The process of group cooperative learning is not static, so the process of cultivation should be dynamic, changing constantly.

A group leader, who is in change of the group, needs to be elected by the group members. And each member is assigned to complete his own work, endeavoring to reach the same goal. In this way, the teaching activity can be carried out orderly. All with objectives and tasks, members sense their importance in the group, satisfying their need to be cared and valued. Thus, they have strong motivation to exert influence in their group.

6.3Defining the Role Accurately and Alter the Role Accordingly

In traditional teaching system, teachers are both judges and players. Comparing classroom learning to a tug of war, teachers and students are on each side of the rope, one advancing when the other retreating. Teachers play the role of judge, evaluating every student when playing tug of war. So, contradiction rises frequently between teachers and students for students think teachers are high above while them at a clear disadvantage. However, in the process of group cooperative learning, teachers play the single role of judge, evaluating the learning outcome of each group and according to which, giving rewards or punishment. The tug-of-war competition is between groups, with groups on the each side of the rope.

Teachers are instructors and organizers as well as participators and cooperators in group cooperative learning. Teachers should participate in group cooperation, respecting and trusting students, rather than put themselves in a place superior to students. When teachers are in demand in group cooperation, teachers play the role of instructor, guiding the way with flexible teaching methods. And when teachers are not in demand, teachers play the role of bystander and valuator.

However, it does not mean that teachers do nothing in the process of cooperative learning. In the process of group cooperative learning, teachers meet with various problems like disciplinary problems or students’ wandering minds. So, it requires teachers to possess sharp eyes to find the problems and get at the root of the problem. To secure the successful conduction of group learning, teachers need to solve the problems as soon as possible. In practice, when students are learning cooperatively, teachers ought to walk around the class and monitor the ongoing of the learning activity. Once problems are found, solutions should come up at once.

It is a big challenge for teachers to adopt group cooperative learning for they should develop their ability of expression, organization, management and emergency. To carry out group cooperative learning effectively, teachers must possess broad and profound professional knowledge, be familiar with textbooks and master various teaching methods. So, teachers must stick to lifelong study and improve throughout their careers.

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