The Cooperative Language Learning Approach.
Regarding teaching approaches, there is a significant
amount of them that can be applied in the classroom depending on what the
teacher wants his or her students to produce at the end of process.
When a teacher has a heterogeneous class where there are
students which come from different communities, with different lifestyles,
different learning styles and principally with different English levels, it is
necessary to look for an approach which can fulfill the students’ needs and
provide a guide for the teacher who has to carry out a difficult task teaching
to these learners. For this reason, the researcher will explain some important
aspects about the Cooperative Language Learning Approach, which is one of the
most useful to be applied in the class described.
Definition
The cooperative language approach has its basis on the
group work, where the learners share the process of learning. According
to Hirst and Slavik (2003), “cooperation
means more than putting students in groups. It means group participation in a
project in which the outcome results from common effort, the goal is shared and
each person's success is linked with every other person's success”. The group
work is a perfect technique to develop in a heterogeneous class, since the
students who have never received English can have an extra support than only
the teacher.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0s_qxJDuas
Essential elements of Cooperative Language
Learning
In the cooperative learning process, the purpose of the
teacher is to have a group of students
working together and helping each other
to reach a specific goal, facing the different barriers
the students from the
group can have. To achieve the determined goal the students have to go
through
a process which has some important elements as follows:
Interdependence
As California Department of Education states “when students work in cooperative
teams in which "all work for one" and "one works for all,"
team members receive the emotional and academic support that helps them
persevere against the many obstacles they face in school”. It means there most be a positive interdependence
among the learners for getting better results and for overwhelming the
differences that can be interfering among the team members.
Interaction
A way of
monitoring the learner’s language acquisition process is to demand the
participations of them. In this stage, the students will have the opportunity
to express themselves to evaluate the acquired learning. “Cooperative groups increase
opportunities for students to produce and comprehend language and to obtain
modeling and feedback from their peers. Much of the value of cooperative
learning lies in the way that teamwork encourages students to engage in such
high-level thinking skills as analyzing, explaining, synthesizing, and
elaborating.” California Department of
Education (2009).
Achievement
When the
cooperative language learning approach is implemented correctly, the results
will be high academic results from students, which is generally the aim of
every teacher.
Nevertheless,
Slavin (1990) mentioned by California
Department of Education (2009) “achievement effects are not seen for all
forms of cooperative learning; the effects depend on the implementation of
cooperative learning methods that are characterized by, at least, two essential
elements: positive interdependence and individual accountability”.
Professional Development
When a teacher decides to base his or her
lessons’ development under the basis of the Cooperative Language Learning
Approach, he or she must have a very clear idea about how is he or she going to
plan the lessons. According to California Department of Education (2009) the
group work activities made through the enlargement of the teaching and learning
process will transform the role of the teacher inside the classroom. Therefore,
the educator has the necessity to access to extensive professional development that includes:
(1) The theory and philosophy of
cooperative learning;
(2) Demonstrations of cooperative
methods; and
(3) Ongoing coaching and collegial
support at the classroom level.
Implementing cooperative approaches is greatly enhanced when teachers' have opportunities to work together and learn from one other.
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