Implementing Cooperative Learning

George Jacobs and Stephen Hall Regional Language Centre, Singapore

In the last 10 years there has been a growing interest among ESL/EFL teachers in using cooperative-learning activities. With cooperative learning, students work together in groups of two to six. However, cooperative learning is more than just putting students into groups and giving them something to do. Cooperativelearning principles and techniques are tools that teachers use to encourage mutual helpfulness and the active participation of all group members. These principles can be seen, for example, in an ESL/EFL reading activity that uses a cooperative-learning technique called “Numbered Heads Together” (Kagan 1992). There are four steps in doing Numbered Heads Together. 1. Each student in a group of four gets a number: 1, 2, 3, or 4. 2. The teacher or a student asks a question based on the text the class is reading. 3. All members in the group put their heads together to come up with an answer or answers. They should also be ready to supply support for their answer(s) from the text and/or from other knowledge. 4. The teacher calls a number from one to four. The person with that number answers for the group. “Numbered Heads Together” encourages successful group functioning because all members need to know their group’s answer(s) and because when students help their groupmates, they help themselves and the whole group. A good deal of research exists in other areas of education suggesting that cooperative learning is associated with benefits in such key areas as learning self-esteem, liking for school, and inter-ethnic relations (Johnson et al. 1990). In second/foreign language learning, theorists propose several advantages for cooperative learning: increased student talk, more varied talk, more relaxed atmosphere, greater motivation, more negotiation of meaning,