Abstract

As one of the most fundamental social activities, learning is often conducted in communities. People tend to accomplish more than as individuals and also have more fun in the process. Thus, junior middle school students are of no exception. When entering the junior middle school at the age around 11-13, they will face two major challenges, one involving the biological, cognitive, and emotional changes, and another involving the transition from primary to junior middle school. Especially, the focus of English learning has shifted from the most basic listening and speaking skills to more advanced reading and writing skills. At the same time, peer learning has considerable influence on whether they can tackle all these challenges. Cooperative learning is a prevailing instructional method aiming to build the learning community, in which a wonderful environment for natural psychological development of adolescents’ is provided, thus does good to students’ English academic achievement. Learning to be cooperative is one of the four educational pillars in the 21st century, and nowadays cooperative learning is also actively advocated in the new round of curriculum reform in China. Cooperative learning can provide students with the chances to participate in activities, which enable students to understand basic linguistic knowledge, master diverse linguistic skills, and more importantly, form good affect and attitude.

As a normal university student, we will go to the junior middle school to do the practice teaching for about three months, and we can take advantage of the junior middle school resources and do some research on students and teachers.

The paper is classified into five parts, focusing on “Cooperative Learning in Junior Middle School English Classroom”. Introduction is the beginning part, analyzing the necessity of this study. Then, it lists several authoritative definitions of Cooperative Learning and my personal understanding about these definitions mentioned above. Next it quotes Vygosky’s “zone of proximal development”, Constructivism and Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” and then explains the connection between these theories and Cooperative Learning as my theoretical bases. The third part deals with application of Cooperative Learning in the teaching of English reading and writing. The fourth part puts forward some problems with cooperative learning in junior middle school English classroom. The last part is conclusion, presenting several merits of cooperative learning, stressing its significance for junior students and looking forward to its promising future.

Key words:  Cooperative Learning Junior Middle School English Classroom

Content

摘要：

Abstract:

Introduction.  1

1 Cooperative Learning.2

  1.1 Definitions of Cooperative Learning.2

1.2 Methods of Cooperative Learning.2

2 Theoretical Bases of Cooperative Learning3

2.1 Zone of Proximal Development3

  2.2 Constructivism.4

2.3 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.4

3 Application of Cooperative Learning in the Teaching of English Reading and Writing 5

  3.1 Application of Cooperative Learning in the Teaching of English Reading5

  3.1.1 Jigsaw Reading .5

3.1.2 Activities Based on Cooperative Learning 7

  3.1.2.1 Pre-reading.7

  3.1.2.2 While-reading.7

  3.1.2.3 Post-reading. 8

  3.1.2.4 After-class Cooperative Reading 8

3.2 Application of Cooperative Learning in the Teaching of English Writing9

 3.2.1 Process Writing Approach9

3.2.2 A Sample Lesson Based on Cooperative Learning.10

4 Problems with Cooperative Learning.14

  4.1 The Role of Teacher.15

  4.3 The Initiative and Participation of Students15

  4.3 Evaluation Methods.16

5 Conclusion.17

Bibliography18

Acknowledgements.20