论文总字数：29987字

摘 要

《初中英语课程标准》指出：“把英语教学与情感教育有机地结合起来，促使学生互相学习、互相帮助，体验集体荣誉感，发展合作精神。”提高英语阅读能力一直是初中英语教学的重要目标，开展合作学习能够调动学生的积极性，提高英语阅读教学效果。本文具体阐述了合作学习模式在初中英语阅读教学的应用,总结了合作学习在英语阅读教学中的优势并针对教师在阅读教学中运用合作学习时容易忽视的问题提出建议。

关键词：初中英语教学；合作学习；阅读教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Definition of Cooperative Learning 2

2.2 Studies of Cooperative Learning 3

3. Application of Cooperative Learning in Junior school English Reading Teaching 5

3.1 Process of CL in English reading teaching 5

3.2 Advantages of CL application 8

4. Suggestion 10

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

Cooperative Learning (CL), a form of teaching organization using in class teaching, is currently widely used in the world. CL is first advocated and implemented by the famous American educator David Koonts in the 1970s. It is different from independent study, but puts more emphasis on language learning process and cooperative relations, so interpersonal cooperation and interaction in teaching are its basic characteristics. On teaching evaluation, it emphasizes the criterion-referenced evaluation more than the norm-referenced evaluation and transfers the competition between individuals into the competition between groups, so teachers can evaluate student"s performance according to team scores.

Junior School English Curriculum Standards points out: “The English Teaching organically combining emotional education will encourage students to learn from each other, to help each other, to experience the collective sense of honor and to develop the spirit of cooperation.” Thus, CL is a manifestation of this new curriculum standards" core concept "independence, cooperation and participation”, bringing new vitality and hope to our English teaching. It effectively improves the learning environment in the classroom and students’ achievement, and expands students’ participation in class. Since the early 1990s, our country began to introduce group activities in teaching, which led to a discussion on CL.

Reading has always been regarded as a significant part of language teaching and improving students" reading ability has also been seen as an important goal of Junior school English teaching. It is related to the continuing expansion of vocabulary, further consolidation of grammar knowledge, improvement of reading ability and writing ability and so on. In the conventional reading lesson, teachers tend to focus on the language structure, such as meaning discrimination, grammatical structure analysis, difficult sentences interpretation and so on. In traditional reading teaching, a considerable part of English teachers in the class explain the text sentence by sentence, while students" main task is to listen and take notes. This single teaching mode is not enough to satisfy the current needs of education. Therefore, effectively CL is born at the right moment.

This article first introduces the definition of CL, and cites international experts" research findings of CL application in Junior school English reading teaching, followed by examples of CL method application in Junior school. Then it analyses its advantages and gives advice to remove deficiency when a teacher uses the method to teach reading, focusing on CL application in Junior school English reading teaching. Finally, it summarizes the whole contents.

1. Literature Review

CL has a long history in both its theory and practice, but it still doesn’t have a concise and accurate definition. Many famous linguists make different definitions. According to many famous experts, CL is the philosophy of teaching.

2.1 Definition of Cooperative Learning

“CL is the mutual engagement of participants using coordinate effort to solve problem together (koschmann, 1997).” “CL is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning (Johnson, Johnson, Holubec, 1993).”

Spencer Kagan in an article in Educational Leadership (Dec/Jan 1989/1990) provides an excellent definition of CL by looking at general structures which can be applied to any situation. His definition provides an umbrella for the work CL specialists including the Johnsons, Slavin, Cooper, Graves and Graves, Millis, etc. It follows below: "The structural approach to CL is based on the creation, analysis and systematic application of structures, or content-free ways of organizing social interaction in the classroom. Structures usually involve a series of steps, with proscribed behavior at each step. An important cornerstone of the approach is the distinction between "structures" and "activities".

"To illustrate, teachers can design many excellent cooperative activities, such as making a team mural or a quilt. Such activities almost always have a specific content-bound objective and thus cannot be used to deliver a range of academic content. Structures may be used repeatedly with almost any subject matter, at a wide range of grade levels and at various points in a lesson plan."

Mostly, a cooperative group consists of 4-6 students. They work together in groups to reach common goals. Within CL, students benefit from sharing ideas rather than working alone. Students help one another so that all can reach some measures of success. This is in contrast with the traditional method where students work individually and competitively. In this educational approach, students and teachers are in a state of dynamic cooperation and together build up an intimate learning and social atmosphere in the classroom.

2.2 Studies of Cooperative Learning

2.2.1 Five basic elements of Cooperative Learning

CL theory is originated in the research of social psychology in the 20th century. Contemporary American educator Gasi Ji said: "Essentially, CL is a form of teaching, which requires students engaged in a group with 2 to 6 different characteristic members learning activities together to complete the assigned learning tasks. In each group, students usually need to cooperate and engage in a variety of learning activities which need mutual support. " In CL, there are five basic elements:

(i) Positive interdependence—Students know that they are not only responsible for their own learning, but also for their group members;

(ii) Small group and individual accountability—The total team score depends on completion of group tasks. Group performance will affect the individual"s score.

(iii) Face-to-face interaction—Students have the opportunity to learn from each other, to help each other, to understand the learning content and to complete the homework;

(iv) Small group skills—Expect all students to be able to communicate effectively, to provide guidance on the activities of the group, to establish and maintain mutual trust between the team members and to effectively resolve conflicts within the group;

(v) Group self-assessment—Each team must regularly evaluate wheather their learning situation is good and think how to improve the effectiveness of learning.

2.2.2 Models of Cooperative Learning

Some famous educators also put forward several models of CL:

(i) Group performance division mode. This mode is a CL method studied out and developed by the US Johns Hopkins University. In the United States, it is a widely used type of CL. Its central objective is to emphasize the teaching goal - simple declarative knowledge which has objective answer. In implementation, different levels, gender, nationality students were divided into several study groups. After teacher presents a subject, students in their respective groups learn the main content and master certain skills together. In this process, team members will learn from each other to ensure that each member will master the teaching content. Then, each students independently participate in the traditional quiz. Before learning, teachers prepare in terms of objectives, mastery degree, expected results and so on. Test scores are based on personal test scores and group improved performance test scores. The test is tested once a week and individual points can be alerted after the test.

(ii) Championship mode. Team Championship game mode is also proposed by the Slaven. It is different from the previous model that its evaluation method is not tests, but once a week "championship". The Panel composed of three persons, each member of the group can integrate points. Low achievement scores groups match with other groups and good results groups compete with other high scores groups. A better team will receive a certificate or other form of reward. For justness, the group will be changed once a week.

(iii) Puzzle mode. The model proposed by the Arnold Johnson is actually a form of learning organization, which is not completely related to the content and nature of learning, and it is widely applied for it is easy and simple to learn and practice. This mode’s general requirement is a group of 4 to 5 people. A group studies a specific task, job or plan. Team members learn from each other in terms of resources, information and learning tasks. Each team member in a particular area will become an "expert" studying with other groups" similar experts and then go back to themselves group to teach other members. This form of cooperation requires that each member of the group should take certain learning tasks. The whole learning task completion depends on the co-operation of each member. Only every member earnestly fulfill their learning tasks, can this group study tasks be all carried out. Teachers must give students a clear division of tasks and guidance. This model evaluates students depending on student"s individual progress.

(iv) Joint learning mode. Joint learning mode is presented by Johnson. It is based on social psychology and the core of this theory is that when everyone gathers for a common goal, the tasks rely on the power of solidarity. Study group usually consists of 4-5 students of different abilities to learn a task together. The group turns over only one piece of homework, and then the group gets their scores. When group are discussing and carrying out activities, group members are assigned a specific role to play, and jointly promote the team to get a high score. Group members not only have their own division task but also rely on each other. The dependence between them provides the impetus for individuals to make them become mutual encouragement, mutual assistance and mutual love. Psychological theory suggests that good relationships can promote students" cognitive, emotional and behavioral these three different levels of learning psychological state. CL groups create an opportunity for students to actively interact in the classroom. It plays a great role for students in aspects of forming a good relationship, developing a good sense of cooperation in contact and developing cooperation capacity, etc.

3. Application of Cooperative Learning in Junior school English Reading Teaching

3.1 Process of CL in English reading teaching

3.1.1 Pre-reading application

Before reading, traditional reading teaching in Junior school, teachers tell students the relevant knowledge of English simply based on the contents of the English text, but Junior English information passed is relatively large. In addition to knowledge of English, there is relevant background and Western cultural differences, etc. And Teachers" thinking is a single direction, so his imparting of information is relatively simple. Therefore, before reading teachers can actively use CL to enrich student"s source of information, so it can enable students to fully understand diverse content related to the English texts. It can also improve divergent thinking and give full play to the students imagination and potential. Usually, before teachers teach English reading text, they will let students make adequate preparation before class. In order to be able to perform well in the class, each group can make a division to carry out preview work, and some members are responsible for previewing text content, mainly familiar with the content, and some members are responsible for the preparation of the difficult words meaning the reading article involved in, and the other members find out the related English background information. Such preparation, not only efficiency is greatly increased, but also the reading content is more comprehensive. So, In class, when teachers ask questions, students will be more relaxed to speak out their opinion. For example, in the eighth grade English book "Unit 6 Natural disasters", before you start to learn, teachers can check whether students have conducted a rehearsal, first giving a question aiming at reading contents, like "What was Timmy doing when the earthquake started?" After preview, students responsible for reading contents preview will actively reply: "He was doing some shopping." Through cooperative preparation in advance, so that students in English reading class will be more relaxed, but no repulsion emotions towards English.

3.1.2 While-reading application

In the CL process, in addition to the student"s effectively understanding of the text content and grasping the whole text structure, it is also of great significance to cultivate students" cooperation ability and to enhance the ability to solve English problems. The CL application in reading is mainly reflected in the following two aspects: a. Integrated topic: In the process of reading, teachers can use CL method, which allows students to summarize the main meaning of the article, to integrate the thrust of the article and to grasp the structure of the article from the title of the article, the core sentence and center paragraphs. As a result, teacher can effectively enhance students" reading skills; b. Extending article questions: After students understand thrust of the article, teachers can let students discuss in a group to propose extend questions related to the content of the article and to find difficult understanding words and sentences and the article extend knowledge, which can effectively improve the students" capacity to find useful information and deal with the details of the information. In "Travels for the environment", for example, teachers can ask "Who cause such changes?", "What should we do?" and other questions to allow students to excavate their potential and discover Travel related issues.

This step is mainly to guide students Skimming and Scanning with reading problems, in order to obtain information and find out the meaning of the article.

Another example, in Module 6 Animals in danger Unit2 The WWF is working hard to save them. Teachers first divided class into several groups. Students in group are responsible for different tasks according to their achievements. Good students read long and difficult paragraphs. Poor students read short and less vocabulary paragraphs. About five minutes later, give students time to discuss and exchange answers. A student in a group is responsible for recording and concluding. When a group is answering, the other groups may have different opinions and they can make corrections. The teacher gives judgment. In order to detect the students" understanding, students read the text again and complete the form (form to fill panda habits, food, amount, situation, solution five aspects of information) for more information. Work in a group to check the answer.

3.1.3 Post-reading application

In post reading part, it allows students to sort, consolidate knowledge, and change the learning English knowledge into the ability to solve problems.

Therefore, in the process of CL application after reading should be based on students" understanding and memory, and then complete some expand practice related to text, in order to cultivate students the ability of comprehensive utilization of English knowledge. Teachers can divide students into some groups and propose to reprocess the article, such as writing the expand content of the article or doing some rewriting practice. Teachers can also suitably arrange some homework to complete their CL. For example, in Junior English Unit2A Different School, teachers can let students as a team to complete activities that writing the article to describe your group members. This not only improves students" ability to expand, but also allows students to fully understand the team members. Futhermore, it increases the feelings between the students and stimulates students" interest in learning. Another example in the process of explaining may / might modal verb usage, the text explains different travel Raiders through three US cities" different weather. After completing reading, teachers can make students finish an assignment that each group needs to find different periods of weather conditions in three different Chinese cities, in order to learn more may / might modal verb usage.

3.2 Advantages of CL application

3.2.1 Reduce the difficulty of reading

Since large-capacity English knowledge in reading class, some tasks can"t be completed by one period in class or by a student’s individual effort. In this case the advantages of CL are manifested. Every student respectively completes course content prescribed by the teacher in the way of division and cooperation in a group. For example, when we need to find the topic sentence, each group member can be responsible for one paragraph, and finally discuss together to sum up the central meaning of the article. Teacher can also divide group to teach reading according to the difficulty of text. For example, good performance teams complete the more difficult task of the text while poor performance groups complete the easier task, so that you can make the whole class get a sense of accomplishment. CL not only improves reading speed, but also improves the learning efficiency of reading class.

3.2.2 Stimulate students" interest in reading

Due to the reading content and vocabulary increasing, students are easily distracted and feel irritable in the reading process, so gradually they will lose interest in reading. But through groups CL, it can activate each student knowledge system by their mutual inspiration, induction and supervision. In this condition, their point of view and the answers will be colorful. So classroom atmosphere is active. When their views are agreed by their companions, they experience the joy of success. So they will be more confident to learn English reading. The most important thing is that they complement each other in group activities and form multi-directional exchange of information. Also, their creative inspiration is further stimulated and they become more in-depth understanding of the article. The article will have a new meaning in the student"s imagination.

3.2.3 Let more students participate in class

When teachers teach reading, we can organize students to discuss and give them space to explore independently and develop their ability to think independently. In past traditional class, after teachers raise a question, only a few students raise their hands to answer, while most of the students become a spectator. They used to listen to others, but never express their personal opinions. So they gradually become indifferent to all language activities and their character also appears withdrawn and unsocial. Two kinds of students have such situation. One is the underachiever in learning. Even if they want to participate in activities, but they are incapable due to their weak foundation. In order to conceal inferiority, they simply stay out. As time passes, they become weariness. The other one is introverted students, they have the ability to say, but they are just not good at taking chance. They like studying on her own and like to be alone. Some of them are still learning aces. Through groups CL, the opportunity becomes equal, and the gap between good and bad students is narrowed. It really makes each student"s body position and subjective personality respected.

3.2.4 Improve students" English proficiency and learning efficiency

CL is beneficial to improve students" English proficiency and English scores. Compared with the traditional teaching model, it greatly increases the chances of students" language output, and increases opportunities among team members to share and exchange learning experiences, so that team members can make progress together, thus improving the students" English proficiency.

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