An Empirical Study on the Application of Cooperative Learning to English Listening Classes

Cooperative learning is a strategic instructional system applied by many educators the world over. Researchers of cooperative learning have carried out the study in this field and proved that cooperative learning can create a more interesting and relaxed learning atmosphere. It is generally acknowledged that cooperative learning can reduce learners’ anxiety, promote teacher-students and students-students relationships, stimulate learners’ motivation and increase their self-confidence. In cooperative learning environments, the learners cooperate and communicate with each other to achieve their mutual goals. Listening, as one of the most important language inputs, its importance for English learning is self-evident. This paper researches on the feasibility and effectiveness of the application of cooperative learning to college English listening classes. An empirical study for a whole semester was carried out in the forms of questionnaire, pretest, posttest and interviews. All the results from the findings demonstrate that cooperative learning can improve learners’ communicative competence significantly and cooperative learning is very effective in English listening classes in this study.