Cooperative Language Learning

BACKGROUND
■ U.S. educator John Dewey is usually
credited with promoting the idea of
building cooperation in learning into
regular classrooms on a regular and
systematic basis.
■ Educators were concerned that
traditional models of classroom
learning were teacher-fronted, fostered
competition rather than cooperation,
and favored majority students.They
believed that minority students might
fall behind higher-achieving students

COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE
LEARNING■ CLL is part of a more general instructional approach also
known as Collaborative Learning (CL)
■ Cooperative learning is group learning activity organized so
that learning is dependent on the socially structured
exchange of information between learners in groups and in
which each learner is held accountable for his or her own
learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others.
(Olsen and Kagan 1992:8)
■ It is an approach that makes maximum use of cooperative
activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the
classroom.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
■ Raise of achievements of all students
■ Positive relationships among students
■ Experience on healthy social, psychological, and
cognitive development
■ Replace competition for cooperation
■ Replace teacher-fronted lessons for student-centered
■ Interactive pair and group activities
■ Development of learning and communication strategies
■ Reduce learner stress and create a positive affective
classroom climate

GOALS
■ To provide opportunities for naturalistic second
language acquisition through the use of
interactive pair and group activities
■ To provide teachers with a methodology to
enable them to achieve this goal and one that
can be applied in a variety of curriculum
settings (e.g., content-based, foreign language
classrooms)

GOALS
■ To enable focused attention to particular lexical
items, language structures, and communicative
functions through the use of interactive tasks
■ To provide opportunities for learners to develop
successful learning and communication strategies
■ To enhance learner motivation and reduce learner
stress and to create a positive affective classroom
climate

■ Interactive and cooperative nature of language
■ Communication as a primary purpose of language
■ Most speech is organized as conversation
■ Communication takes place upon certain agreed-
upon set of cooperative rules
■ We learn these social rules in conversational
interaction
THEORY OF
LANGUAGE

■ Social interaction in learning: (Jean Piaget and
Vygotsky) by structure situation, interactive
structure, and Question Matrix (Bloom).
■ Development of critical thinking skills
■ Learning must emphasize on cooperation, not
on competition
■ Increase and variety of second language
practice
THEORY OF
LEARNING

■ Cognitive development and increased language
skills
■ Integration of language with content-based areas
■ Greater variety of materials to stimulate language
and concept learning
■ Mastering of professional skills that emphasize on
communication
■ Students act as resources of each other – a more
active role
THEORY OF
LEARNING

LEARNER ROLES
■ Work collaboratively on tasks with other group members.
■ Must learn teamwork skills.
■ Be directors of their learning (plan, monitor, and evaluate
their own learning)
■ Learning requires student’s direct and active involvement
and participation.
■ Alternate roles involve partners in the role of tutors,
checkers, recorders, and information sharers. “Pair tasks”

TEACHER ROLES
■ Create a highly structured and well organized
learning environment in the classroom:
– Setting goals, planning and structuring tasks,
establishing the physical arrangement of the
classroom, assigning students to groups and
roles, and selecting materials and time
(Johnson et al. 1994)
■ Be a facilitator of learning.

■ Move around the class and helping students and groups
as needs arise:
– During this time the teacher interacts, teaches,
refocuses, questions, clarifies, supports, expands,
celebrates, and empathizes.
– And facilitators are giving feedback, redirecting the
group with questions, encouraging the group to solve its
own problems, extending activity, encouraging thinking,
managing conflict, observing students, and supplying
resources. (Harel 1992: 169)
TEACHER ROLES

■ Teacher speaks less than in teacher fronted
class.
■ Provide broad questions to challenge thinking.
■ Prepare students for the task they will carry out.
■ Assist students with the learning tasks.
■ Give few commands, imposing less disciplinary
control (Harel 1992)
TEACHER ROLES

■ Restructuring lessons so that students can work
cooperatively. This involves the following steps
(Johnson et al. 1994: 9):
– Take your existing lessons, curriculum, and sources and
structure them cooperatively.
– Tailor cooperative learning lessons to your unique instructional
needs, circumstances, curricula, subject areas, and students.
– Diagnose the problems some students may have in working
together and intervene to increase learning groups’
effectiveness.
TEACHER ROLES

THE ROLE OF INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS
■ Create opportunities for students to work
cooperatively.
E.g. If students are working in groups..
1. Each student might have a set of materials.
2. Groups might have different sets of materials.
3. Or, each member might need a copy of a text.
• Materials can be specially designed for CLL
learning, modified from existing materials, or
borrowed from other disciplines.

Procedure:
 Cooperative writing
 Editing pair
During the procedure
 Teacher’s role: he or she monitors the pairs or
group work
 Student’s role: active and cooperative

TYPES OF
LEARNING AND
TEACHING
ACTIVITIES

FORMAL
COOPERATIV
E LEARNING
GROUPS
These last from one
class period to several
weeks
Involve students
working together to
achieve shared learning
goals
INFORMAL
COOPERATIV
E LEARNING
GROUPS
These are adhoc groups
that last from a few
minutes to a class period.
To focus student
attention or to
facilitate learning
during direct teaching
COOPERATIV
E BASE
GROUPS
These are long term,
lasting for at least a year
and consist of
heterogeneous learning
groups with stable
membership
To allow members to give
each other the support,
help, encouragement, and
assistance they need to
succeed academically

K
E
Y
E
L
E
M
E
N
T
S
Positive Interdependence
Group Formation
Individual Accountability
Social Skills
Structuring and Structures

POSITIVE INTERDEPENDENCE
■ This occurs when group members feel that what helps one
member helps all and what hurts one member hurts all. It
is created by the structure of CL tasks and by
GROUP FORMATION
Factors involved in setting up groups:
 Deciding on the size of the group
 Assigning students to groups
 Student roles in groups

■ Everyone must learn the information, so everyone
can contribute to the project.
■ Group grade and individual grade.
– Group is graded on project.
– Individuals are graded on how well they perform
their role, responsibilities and know the information.
– Everyone has a job to do.
INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

STRUCTURING AND STRUCTURES
■ This determines the way students interact with each
other as teammates.
SOCIAL SKILLS
■ This refer to ways of organizing student interaction
and different ways students are to interact such as
Three-step interview or Round Robin.

THREE MAJOR LEARNING
TASKS1. Team practice from common input
 skills development and mastery of facts
2. Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input
 evaluation and synthesis of facts and opinions
 Current communicative approaches
3. Cooperative projects: topics/resources selected by
students
 discovery learning

EXAMPLES OF CLL ACTIVITIES
(OLSEN & KAGAN)
■ Three- step interview:
1. Students are in pairs; one is interviewer and the other is
interviewee.
2. Students reverse roles.
3. Each shares with team member what was learned during the
two interviews.
■ Roundtable (Round Robin)There is one piece of paper and one
pen for each team.One student makes a contribution and
passes the paper and pen to the student of his or her left. Each
students makes contributions in turn.

■ Think- Pair- Share:Teacher poses a question. Students think of a
response. Students discuss their responses with a partner. Students
share their partner’s response with the class
■ Solve – Pair – Share: teacher poses a problem. Students work out
solutions individually. Students explain how they solved the problem
in interview or Round Robin structures
■ Numbered Heads: Students number off in teams.Teacher asks a
question. HeadsTogether – students literally put their heads together
and make sure everyone knows and can explain the answer.Teacher
calls a number and students with that number raise their hands to be
called on, as in traditional classroom.
EXAMPLES OF CLL ACTIVITIES
(OLSEN & KAGAN)

CONCLUSION
■ In Cooperative Learning, group activities are the
major mode of learning and are part of a
comprehensive theory and system for the use of
group work in teaching.
■ Group activities are carefully planned to maximize
students’ interaction and to facilitate students’
contributions to each other’s learning.
■ Proponents of CLL stress that it enhances both
learning and learners’ interaction skills.

Cooperative Language Learning

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