This study brings together the fields of cooperative learning, second language
acquisition, as well as second/foreign language teaching to create optimal schooling
experiences for junior high school students. Integrating cooperative learning with
the theories from the second language acquisition, i.e. the comprehensible input, the
comprehensible output, the interaction and context, and the affective domain of
motivation, the researcher hopes that this empirical study can provide a close link
between cooperative learning and the communicative language teaching and, at the
same time, propose guidelines for EFL teachers who wish to implement cooperative
learning to enhance their students’ proficiency in English as well as motivation
toward learning English.
The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the effects of
cooperative learning on EFL junior high school learners’ language learning,
motivation toward learning English as a foreign language, and the high- and
low-achievers’ academic achievements in a heterogeneous language proficiency
group. A pretest-posttest group research design was used. The sample population
was from two classes of the first year junior high school students in a rural town in
central Taiwan. There were totally 70 students involved in this study. The
experimental group was taught in cooperative learning for one semester with the