Cooperative learning is an effective language teaching method that allows learners to go through meaningful practice by interacting with their peers as a means of communication in English learning(Johnson & Johnson, 1999), and Korean school educat...
Cooperative learning is an effective language teaching method that allows learners to go through meaningful practice by interacting with their peers as a means of communication in English learning(Johnson & Johnson, 1999), and Korean school education also encourages the use of cooperative learning to improve English communication skills(Ministry of Education, 2020). In particular, the middle school curriculum emphasizes cooperative learning beyond individual and competitive learning structures along with the full introduction of the free semester system, and presents daily communication as an English department goal in earnest(Korea Institute of Curriculum Evaluation, 2016; Ministry of Education, 2020). Therefore, this study focuses on the importance of cooperative learning to help improve English communication capabilities, and attempts to analyze cooperative learning tasks of first-year middle school English textbooks that are actually used in Korea's educational field where textbook-oriented classes are conducted. In addition, by identifying the level of awareness of cooperative learning through the study on learners’ perception and checking the degree reflected in the current textbook, it is intended to help organize classes using cooperative learning and further develop textbooks planned in the future.
Detailed research problems established based on this purpose are as follows. First, how are the distribution and composition of cooperative learning tasks in each textbook? Second, how are the distribution and composition of cooperative learning tasks compared between textbooks? Last, for each type of cooperative learning tasks, how much do the learners feel in preference, easiness, usefulness in learning English? And questions were additionally organized to find out whether the perception of cooperative learning and the COVID-19 affected the progress of it.
In order to implement research problems, this study selected all 13 currently used 2015 revised English textbooks as analysis targets. In addition, the learner awareness survey was conducted on three first-year students of Y Middle School located in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.
The results of this study are as follows. Foremost, for the frequency of each type in the textbook analysis, other activities includes conversation practice and solving the questions were the most common, followed by role play, interview, project, and game. Problem-solving, decision-making, and jigsaw were presented with a wide gap from the aforementioned activities. In addition, it was confirmed that 13 textbooks generally included more than 50 cooperative learning activities and that presented about 7.5 for each unit. By task performance group size, there was generally an even distribution, but some textbooks showed a biased distribution centered on small-scale(pair activities). Next, the results of the learner perception study showed that game was the least burdensome and interesting type to learners. And learners preferred decision-making and problem-solving that are required discussion, and group activities where several people can compete, cooperate, and proceed together. Additionally, many responses were suggested that cooperative learning is effective in learning English, and that they want more and diverse types of it. Moreover, they pointed out that cooperative learning was not properly carried out in non-face-to-face classes during COVID-19, and hoped that learning using cooperative learning would be more active in future face-to-face classes.
Based on the above analysis results, the following are the suggestions to effectively utilize cooperative learning. First, when organizing textbooks and classes, it is necessary to reflect learners' preferences for cooperative learning types and to evenly distribute various types. Second, it is necessary to actively utilize the advantages of cooperative learning in the English learning process so that learners can experience more cooperative learning. Third, it is necessary to consider cooperative learning activities that can be used in non-face-to-face classes. In a situation where face-to-face classes are not available, it will be necessary to prepare in advance so that there is no shortage of cooperative learning classes. Finally, textbook analysis and perception study should be conducted on all middle school courses in which daily communication is presented in earnest as an English department goal and their abilities are gradually expanded. It would be meaningful to investigate the response to cooperative learning by type in actual class time and apply it to class and textbook composition.