IMPLEMENTING COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN EFL TEACHING:
PROCESS AND EFFECTS
ABSTRACT
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
methods of Three-Step-Interview, Learning Together, Talk Pair, Inside-Outside Circle,
and Student-Teams-Achievement Division. The control group was taught in the
traditional method of Grammar Translation with some of the Audio-Lingual approach.
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This study collected data from two oral tasks, scores of monthly examinations,
motivational questionnaires, student interview, and teacher interview to achieve
methodological triangulation. The statistical tools of the Independent Samples Test
and Paired Samples Test were used to determine whether there were significant inter-
and intra-group differences. The results of the study showed that the experimental
group outperformed the control group significantly (p < .05) in the measurement of
oral communicative competence and the motivational questionnaire. The results of
the students’ scores on the school monthly examination showed that the academic
achievements of the experimental group were comparable to those of the control
group.
The major findings of this study suggested that cooperative learning helped
significantly to enhance the junior high school learners’ oral communicative
competence and their motivation toward learning English. Based upon the
conclusions drawn from the study, cooperative learning was thus recommended to be
integrated into the junior high school English instruction as part of the Nine-Year
Joint Curriculum, the current wave of education reform in Taiwan. Pedagogical
implications for the application of cooperative learning in EFL teaching, especially
suggestions for teacher development in cooperative learning, were proposed. Finally,
suggestions for future research were recommended.