Cooperative Learning
Even though studies show otherwise, teachers today constantly revert back to their safety-net of frontal teaching, claiming that this form of lecturing is more beneficial inside the classroom. Consequently, the question that rises is: If cooperative learning is indeed more beneficial as research indicate, why do teachers still fail to accomplish the task of group-learning within classrooms? This paper is based on analysis of six interviews with English teachers, and the writing of Muriel Saville-Troike, Hulya Ipek, Nalini Arumugam and Faiz Sathi Abdullah Mara Sapon-Shevin, Barbara J. Ayres, Janet Duncan, George Jacobs, and Lorn W. Anderson, Aretha Pigford.
As a result of completing the above procedure, it is safe to say that cooperative learning is necessary but has to be well implemented, adjusted and explicitly taught to both teachers and students. However, since teachers are not taught these skills themselves, they are lacking the confidence needed in order to convey them to their pupils. Therefore, the implication of not having to teach courses of cooperative learning in college are that language teaching hasn't evolved and teachers choose to teach frontally rather than cooperatively. Respectively, the assumption is that despite the prevailing view amongst teachers today that group work is hard to integrate in teaching, it can be efficient and useful if done correctly.
Finally, existing literature shows that integrating cooperative learning style enhances the learning process if it is approached and handled right. However, as my interviews showed, there is a lack of faith by the teachers who have to implement the methods and the researchers promoting the different styles of teaching. My research highlights the need for better communication between those who create the methods and the teachers who implement them. Therefore the larger implication is that there is a strong need to help teachers understand the importance of group work. When participants in the cooperative learning system, both students and teachers alike, find themselves uncomfortable or unable to properly implement this style of learning, it is because they have agreed to implement the technique but did so without grasping the major principles and without the necessary support which would have allowed them to create beneficial learning activities.
