Chapter One Introduction
1.1 The Background of Study
In the19thand 20thcentury, cooperative learning appeared and gradually became one of the mostwidespread and fruitful areas of educational theory, research, and practice all over the world. Grammaraccounts for a large percent of the score in English examination. Besides, we are in an interconnected andinternationalized times. It is inevitable that a great number of files and instructions in every field arepublished in English. Grammar plays an important role in Junior High School students who are going toattend the college entrance examination. It is known that a language consists of vocabulary, phonetic andgrammar. Vocabulary is regarded as building materials, and grammar seems to be building framework.People should obey grammar rules, no matter what they speak or write while they communicate with eachother, besides grammar knowledge is helpful to reading ability. But most students have difficulty ingrammar and dealing with texts. Traditionally, our classroom is teacher-centered, that is, teacher dominatesthe whole class and is regarded as the unique authority. Students do nothing but take notes of what theteachers say mechanically. Students are accustomed to believing in their teacher. The chances for them toparticipate in real communication in classroom are too limited. This kind of “teacher centered” form shouldbe altered in English grammar class. It is necessary to build an effective model of teaching Englishgrammar, providing English teachers with a reference, efficient operation of the English CurriculumCriteria, and facilitating the development of students’ grammar learning competence of English. Besides,students’learning styles can be changed from passive reception into the one of cooperation and exploration.
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1.2 The Purpose and Significance of the Study
As mention above, grammar teaching is necessary and important. So, the group cooperative learningshould be a new strategy to improve the situation because of the problems existing in grammar teaching.These are the main problems in middle school English classroom teaching. In order to overcome thesedisadvantages, many scholars advocated to using the mean of group cooperative to teaching. The Groupcooperative learning is the strategy and method which was used most widely in primary and middle schoolEnglish classroom in our country. It is a way which completed the classroom tasks through cooperate withdue division of labor. In cooperative learning, they asked questions, discussed the problems and solved theproblems. The communicative teaching method which was prevail for a time pointed out that the teacherswere no longer the master of the classroom and the student is the center of the classroom. In the meanwhile,the findings of the research will be a supplement and breakthrough to traditional reading-learning style andmay provide teachers with a new and systematic cooperative learning approach to guide their teaching ofgrammar. In this study the author tries to apply cooperative learning to English grammar class, suppliesmore opportunities to junior students to communicate and develops their language-using ability and tries tofind out whether it is a good way to improve Junior students’ grammar grades, changes their attitudes andinterests towards English grammar in English grammar class. So the intention of this experiment is toexamine whether the students’grammar achievements, language knowledge and ability will be improved ornot and whether the students’interest of learning English will be changed or not.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Review of Group-cooperative Learning
“Cooperation” is a joint action which is between individual and individual, group and group in orderto achieve common goal, cooperate with each other. It has a long history.The famous educator David Koonts firstly puts forward the concept of cooperative learning andapplies it into practice. It puts the interpersonal interaction and cooperation as the basic characteristics inthe process of teaching and it is a kind of effective teaching strategy and theory. About the concept ofcooperative learning, different people have different points.Slavin (1987) defines cooperative learning as a set of instructional methods in which students areencouraged or required to work together on academic tasks. The definition stresses the form of cooperationto deal with academic tasks.P.Abrami (1995) summarizes cooperative learning as “an instructional strategy in which students worktogether in groups that are carefully designed to promote positive interdependence.” The scholar stressesthe whole process of the cooperative learning method.T. Panitz (1996) believed that cooperative learning is defined by a set of process which help peopleinteract together in order to accomplish a specific goal or develop an end product which is usually contentspecific. It stresses the importance of the effect and advantage of cooperative learning.
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2.2 Review of English Grammar Teaching
English has an important position in the basic education stage as a language discipline. At present, thepurpose is to make students obtain the basic knowledge of English, develop faculty of thinking, teachthemselves and English communication, stimulate students interest, and form a good learning habit andthinking integrity in order to lay a good foundation for lifelong learning through the training of listening,speaking, reading and writing in junior middle school English teaching. How to achieve the goal of juniormiddle school English teaching? Some scholars think that when we organize the teaching of English in anon-English environment, whether to teach English, or cultivate the students’ English reading ability andapplication ability, we must pay attention to grammar teaching. We should put vocabulary as brick, put thegrammar as scaffold, and gradually form English language network. Grammar is the rules which are restrictthe relationship between the word and the word in the sentence and grammar teaching is an indispensableimportant part in English teaching.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework......14
3.1 Social Constructive Theory......... 14
3.2 Group Dynamics Theory........14
3.3 The Zone of Proximal Development.......15
Chapter Four Research Design......17
4.1 Research Questions ........17
4.2 Research Subjects......17
4.3 Research Instruments.......17
4.4 Research Procedures........19
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion....29
5.1 Results of Research....30
5.2 Discussion......40
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion
5.1 Results of Research
This chapter will carefully analyze the results and data of the research. The researcher collected data isto prove the effects of the group cooperative in the grammar learning and all the data will be analyzed bySPSS16.0. In the analysis of the results of the questionnaire survey for the first time, the students’ attitude,English level, requires are almost the same because of their grammar was taught by the same teacher in theExperimental Class and Control Class in the process of the interpretation of grammar, so the researcheranalyses the two classes together.We can see from this table that 98.4% of all the students think grammar is very important for Englishstudy, only 1.6% of people have opposite points. 95.1% of the students like grammar lessons, but 4.9% ofthe students don’t like. Only 29.6% of the students think that the teacher explained grammar rulesmechanically lead to the class is very boring, but 50.8% of the people is not very agree, and 19.6% of thestudents like this kind of teaching method. 44.3% of the students reflect that the teacher made the teachingmaterial as the center to teach grammar and seldom used extracurricular materials, but 55.0% of thestudents don’t agree with this point of view.
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Conclusion
The author really feels that the cooperative teaching is a kind of innovation teaching theory andstrategy system. This paper is to study these questions which included can the group cooperative learningand change the students’ grammar interest? Whether the group cooperative learning can improve students’grammar achievements or not? After the group cooperative learning is used in English grammar learning inJunior Middle School.The test is carried out in two classes of grade seven in Ji Xian nine-year school and 61 students tookpart in the experiment. They completed two questionnaires (Pre-Questionnaire and Post-Questionnaire) andattended the exam two times. Part of the students who are from experimental class accepted the interview.The author applied the theory of cooperative learning to teaching practice. It is proved that the mode ofgroup cooperative learning in English classroom is feasible through the above test, questionnaires,interview and the results of achievement test. It improves students’ ability of autonomous learning, enhancetheir interest of English grammar learning and improve their English achievement. The group cooperativelearning can break depressing and improve the enthusiasm of the students to learn. The classroomatmosphere becomes strong. Through the experimental study, the researcher has deeper understanding andview for the group cooperative learning.
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References (omitted)
