Characteristics of the Cooperative Language Learning
Theory of language
Richards and Rodgers in their book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2003) stay that there
are some basic premises in which the approach is based, and they mention some
authors to explain their point of view about cooperative nature of language:
- Premise 1: “Born to talk” (Weeks
1979), the author says that all human beings are born to talk and to
communicate, that we just have to follow the normal way of our human
development and we are going to learn to talk.
- Premise 2: People organize their speech in
conversation. “Human beings spend a
large part of their lives engaging in conversation and for most of them
conversation is among their most significant and engrossing activities”
(Richards and Schmidt 1983: 117).
- Premise 3: Conversation operates
according to a certain agreed-upon set of cooperative rules or “maxims”
(Griece 1975).
- Premise 4: “One learns how these cooperative maxims
are realized in one’s native language through casual, everyday
conversational interaction” (Richards and Rodgers 2003).
- Premise 5: “One learns how the
maxims are realized in a second language through participation in
cooperatively structured interactional activities” (Richards and Rodgers
2003).
Theory of Learning
“CLL also seeks to develop learner’s critical thinking
skills, which are seen as central to learning of any sort. Some authors have
even elevated critical thinking to the same level of focus as that of the basic
language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking”. (Kagan 1992),
mentioned by Richards and Rodgers (2003). The CCL approach is based on the
cooperation rather than competition on, but to have a fair grade of cooperation
each student in a group or team must be able to have critical thinking to
participate and provide ideas to the group work.
Types of teaching
and learning activities
Johnson, Johnson, and
Holubec (1994:2) mentioned by Richards and Rodgers (2003) explain that
cooperative learning groups can be described in three different types as
follows.
- Formal cooperative learning group: this type of group
goes from the specific time of a class to several weeks. It is established
for specific tasks and involve students working together to achieve shared
learning goals.
- Informal cooperative learning groups. These are groups
formed at the moment of the class which last from a few minutes to one
class period. These groups are used to focus student’s attention or
facilitate learning during direct teaching.
- Cooperative base groups: These are
long- term, they are formed to work for at least one year and consist of
heterogeneous learning groups that develop supporting, helping,
encouraging, and assisting abilities in each student towards their
classmates to have academic success.
However, Richards and Rodgers (2003), also stay in their
book the importance of organizing the groups following some important features
to have a successfully group work.
·
Positive
interdependence
occurs when group members feel that what helps one of them will help any of the
group, and what affects one does affect the group as well. It means that each
member of the group will do his or her best effort in each assigned task, this
to obtain good results for him or herself and as a result for whole group. It
creates a great sense of responsibility among the members because if one fails
the rest will fail too, but if one does an excellent job the entire group will
have an excellent job.
·
Group
formation
is an important element because it enhances interdependence among students. The
group size is, usually, from two to four. The people in each group are chosen
either by the teacher or students, or at random. It is very important for the
performance of the group to assign roles within the members of the group;
therefore, each one knows what to help with. Sometimes when students work in
groups there are some people who leader the work and some others remain
passively avoiding responsibility, and waiting for the rest to do the
work. As a result, it is very important
to give a specific function to each member of the group in order to have all
the students collaborating in the assigned task.
·
Individual accountability involves both individual
and group performance. The group work will be reflected in the individual
performance and knowledge development. It means that if a student learns to be
responsible in a group, to think and analyze things carefully to obtain good
results, they will continue doing the same in their individual work, and will
also help, to improve their academic outcomes.
·
Social
skills are
developed as well as reinforced through group working. When the students
interact in group work constantly, they learn to listen and respect other
people’s opinions, and to understand that two heads think better than one. In
addition, they became more confident of themselves and they learn to value
their classmates’ efforts as well as their own.
Learner roles
The most
important role of the learner is to be part of a group work in which they have
to work collaboratively on assigned tasks. Besides, the learners have to be
directors of their own learning as they are educated for planning, monitoring,
and evaluating their own learning process. One more role is to be participants
of pair grouping which is the most typical CLL format. Here, the learner must
be changing roles that include partners in the role of tutors, checkers,
recorders, and information sharers. (Richards and Rodgers,
2003).
Teachers roles
The
teacher roles are different from the common roles that a teacher who is only in
front of the class has. According to Johnson et al (1994) some of their roles
are:
- To create a highly-structured and
well-organized learning environment
- To set goals
- To plan and structure tasks.
- To establish the physical
arrangement of the classroom
- To assign students to groups and
roles
- To select materials and time for
each lesson
- To be a facilitator who is constantly moving around the class helping students, clarifying, giving feedback, encouraging the group to solve their own questions and problems, and giving the necessary support the group members.
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