Investigating teachers' and students' attitudes towards the use of cooperative language learning to enhance EFL students ' speaking skill
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Date
2014
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university of Oum-El-Bouaghi
Abstract
Recent studies in the field of language teaching emphasize the importance of the learning process and the central role of the learner. Cooperative learning is one of the instructional methods that emphasize the role of the learner in the learning/teaching process. The present study is mainly concerned with investigating teachers' and students' perspectives about the use of cooperative work to enhance learners' oral production. It also attempts to shed some light on the importance of establishing a relaxed and friendly environment as an attempt to get learners to use the language. The basic hypothesis adopted in this study sets out that applying cooperative learning in language class would enhance learners' oral skill. The method of this research work is descriptive. That is, it aims to describe two variables: cooperative learning as the independent variable and its role in improving learners' oral skill as the dependent variable. The data were gathered through self-completion questionnaires administered to third-year (licence, Master, Doctorate) LMD learners and to teachers at the department of english, Larbi Ben M'Hidi university. The results have shown that cooperative work is one of the appropriate techniques for increasing learners' language use and classroom oral participation which in turn affects learners' speaking skill. On the basis of these results, the hypothesis is confirmed in that students need to be provided with an adequate technique to develop their speaking skill and to create suitable situations where they can use the language without hesitation. This study has certainly its limitations, but its findings reveal interesting implications. Thus, future research should be done experimentally to test out the applicability of the findings to a larger population of subjects.
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Keywords
Cooperative language learning, Learning english : EFL