Introduction

Cooperative Learning (CL) or Cooperative Language Learning (CLL) is an approach to teach

which the main purpose is work in cooperative activities, in small groups or pairs of learners, in
order to make a structured exchange of information between the learners involved in different
groups to maximize their own and each others learning.
Como es sabido, para Piaget, el nio es un sujeto activo, que va conociendo el mundo que le
rodea a partir de actuar sobre el mismo... El sujeto es un constructor de su propio
conocimiento, resultado de la interaccin entre lo que ya conoce y el mundo por conocer. En
este proceso, la interaccin con los dems y en especial del nio con los otros nios es
fundamental para el desarrollo (Duran & Vidal, 1a Edicin, Febrero 2004)
This report contains essential information about this method, its origin and characteristics,
applicability based on the experience in the classroom and main exponents. Also it is reflected
about why this method it is important in our future profession.

Findings
Background
Cooperative Learning has antecedents in proposals for peer-tutoring 1 that go back hundreds of
years and longer. The early twentieth century U.S. educator John Dewey is usually credited with
promoting the idea of building cooperation in learning into regular classrooms on a regular and
systematic basis. However this method was more generally promoted and developed in the
United States in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to the forced integration of public schools
and has been substantially refined and developed since then. Educators were concerned that
traditional models of classrooms learning were teacher-fronted, fostered competition rather than
cooperation, and favored majority students. They believe that minority students might fall behind
high-achieving students in this kind of learning environment. Cooperative Learning in this
context sought to do the following:
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Raise the achievement of all students, including those who are gifted or academically

handicapped.
Help the teacher build positive relationships among students.
Give students the experiences they need for healthy social, psychological and cognitive

development.
Replace the competitive organizational structure of most classrooms and schools with a
team-based, high-performance organizational structure. (Johnson, 1994)

In terms of theory of learning this method has its origin on the theoretical work of developmental
psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, both whom stress the central role of social
interaction in learning. A central premise of CL is that learners develop communicative
competence in a language by conversing in socially or pedagogically structured situations.
Cooperative Learning advocates have proposed certain interactive structures that are
considered optimal for learning the appropriate rules and practices in conversing in a new
language, and also seeks to develop learners critical thinking skills, which are seen as central
to learning of any sort.

Characteristics
Types of Learning and Teaching Activities
1 Peer-tutoring is a method of instruction that involves students teaching other students.

Johnson (1994) describe three types of cooperative learning groups:

1. Formal cooperative learning groups: These last from one class period to several weeks
and are established for a specific task and involve students working together to achieve
shared learning goals.
2. Informal cooperative learning groups: These are ad-hoc groups that last from a few
minutes to a class period and are used to focus student attention or to facilitate learning
during direct teaching.
3. Cooperative base groups: These are long term, lasting for at least a year and consist of
heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is to
allow members to give each other the support, help, encouragement, and assistance
they need to succeed academically.
According to David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1999), there are five basic elements that allow
successful small-group learning:
1. Positive interdependence: Students feel responsible for their own and the group's effort.
2. Face-to-face interaction: Students encourage and support one another; the environment
encourages discussion and eye contact.
3. Individual and group accountability: Each student is responsible for doing their part; the
group is accountable for meeting its goal.
4. Group behaviors: Group members gain direct instruction in the interpersonal, social, and
collaborative skills needed to work with others occurs.
5. Group processing: Group members analyze their own and the group's ability to work
together.

Coelho (1992) describes three major kinds of cooperative learning tasks and their learning
focus:
1. Team practice from common input skills development and mastery of facts:
All students work on the same material.
The task is to make sure that everyone in the group knows the answer to a question and can
explain how the answer was obtained or understands the material. Because students want their
team to do well, they coach and tutor each other to make sure that any member of the group
could answer for all of them and explain their teams answer.

 When the teacher takes up the question or assignment, anyone in a group may be called on
to answer for the team.
This technique is good for review and for practice tests; the group takes the practice test
together, but each student will eventually do an assignment or take a test individually.
This technique is effective in situations where the composition of the groups is unstable (in
adult programs, for example). Students can form new groups every day.
2. Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input evaluation and synthesis of facts
and opinions:
Each group member receives a different piece of the information.
Students regroup in topic groups (expert groups) composed of people with the same piece to
master the material and prepare to teach it.
Students return to home groups (Jigsaw groups) to share their Information with each other.
Students synthesize the information through discussion.
Each student produces an assignment of part of a group project, or takes a test, to
demonstrate synthesis of all the information presented by all group members.
This method of organization may require team-building activities for both home groups and
topic groups, long-term group involvement, and rehearsal of presentation methods.
This method is very useful in the multilevel class, allowing for both homogeneous and
heterogeneous grouping in terms of English proficiency.
Information-gap activities in language teaching are jigsaw activities in the form of pair work.
Partners have data (in the form of text, tables, charts, etc.) with missing information to be
supplied during interaction with another partner.
3. Cooperative projects: topics/resources selected by students discovery learning.
Topics may be different for each group.
Students identify subtopics for each group member.
Steering committee may coordinate the work of the class as a whole.
Students research the information using resources such as library reference, interviews, visual
media.
Students synthesize their information for a group presentation: oral and/or written. Each group
member plays a part in the presentation.
Each group presents to the whole class.
This method places greater emphasis on individualization and students interests. Each
students assignment is unique. (Richards & Rodgers, Second Edition 2001)
Procedures
How to implement this method?
According to a research of Johnson (1994) is extracted an example about how a collaborative
learning could be applied in a lesson when the students are required to express themselves in a
written way ( essay, report, story or poem). Students are going to work in pairs, then they have
to check that their compositions are made based on the criteria established by the teacher. After
this, they receive an individual or group score on the quality of their compositions. This
procedure has the following steps :
1.- The teacher designate at least one good reader for group

2.- Student 1 explain to student 2 what she or he want to write. They listen and ask to
each other and extracting general ideas.
3.- Individually , the students look for the material that they need it , keeping in mind that
this material have to be useful for their partners chore.
4.- For the first paragraph of the text , the students have to work together to assure that
they have a clear idea in their chore.
5.- The students write their texts individually
6.- At the time of writing is complete, the students correct each others text , making
corrections in punctuation, spelling, language usage and other matters specified by the teacher ,
giving suggestions or advices.
7.- The students review their works
8.- The students reread each others works and sign their names to prove that each works
does not have any mistake
The importance of this process is that it must be monitored by the teacher , intervening when
the students need help.

Nowadays we can find many other kinds of tasks or activities to implement in classes to work in
groups with different variations, including music, theater and a wide of didactic elements that
helps to enrich this method.
Main Exponents
Jean Piaget, was a clinical psychologist known for his pioneering work in child development.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic
epistemology". Piaget argues in his theory of child cognitive development that the principles of
logic begins to settle before the acquisition of language, generating through baby sensory and
motor activity in interaction and interrelation with the environment, especially with the sociocultural environment.
Lev Vygotsky, was a Russian psychologist of Jewish origin, one of the most prominent
theorists of development psychology, founder of cultural-historical psychology and clear

forerunner of the Soviet neuropsychology. The fundamental idea of his work is that of human
development can only be explained in terms of social interaction. The development consists of
the internalization of cultural instruments (such as language) that initially do not belong to us,
they belong to the Group of people in which we are born, which conveys cultural products
through social interaction. Culture, therefore, plays an important role in the theory of Vygotsky.
John Dewey, was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose
ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures
associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founders of
functional psychology. One of the most visible approaches to peer learning comes out of
cognitive psychology, and is applied within a "mainstream" educational framework: "Peer
learning is an educational practice in which students interact with other students to attain
educational goals."
David W. Johnson, is a social psychologist whose research has focused on four overlapping
areas: cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts; constructive controversy; conflict
resolution and peer mediation and experiential learning to teach interpersonal and small group
skills. Johnson has developed and applied psychological knowledge in effort to improve
practices within educational systems. Johnsons books have been translated into 17 different
languages and his work has been applied in many countries. He works with his brother Roger T.
Johnson (Professor of Curriculum) and together they founded the Cooperative Learning
Center.
Cooperative learning changes students' and teachers' roles in classrooms. The ownership of
teaching and learning is shared by groups of students, and is no longer the exclusive
responsibility of the teacher. The authority of setting goals, assessing learning, and facilitating

learning is shared by all.

Roles
Student (Learner): The principal role of the student as a member of a determinate group, is
work collaboratively with the other members of the group. First of all, students must to acquire
teamwork skills, in order to create their own learning. After that the students learn how to
elaborated, planning and evaluate their own knowledge. Because of this, the students have to
be complete involve in participate actively. The teamwork is usually the way to implement the
cooperative learning, in which all the students are actively involved and in the same manner of
the tasks, taking advantage of all the time that it is possible. The students must to alternate the
different roles which each of them have in the group, like share all the information, or be the
tutors, recorders, etc.

Teacher : The role of the teacher is be the facilitator of the learning , helping students who
need it , interacting , clarifying , supporting the group to resolve its own problems , giving
feedback and handling conflict. Has to generate a very structured and well organized learning
environment in the classroom , establish clear goals , determined the physical arrangement of
the classroom , appoint roles of students into the groups and choose the material that will be
used. With regard of the tasks, these must be

designed by the teacher to be developed

cooperatively, determining the problems that students have to resolve working together.
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Materials : Play a role of great importance for the creation of opportunities that encourage
cooperative work in students. The material that is used for a determinate activity can be
occupied again in another, but the use given has to be different to vary the use of the material.
An example is when the students are working in groups, each of them must have materials to
be able to work together, that means, that if they are working on a text, all groups members
must have a copy of this to make a cooperative work. Most of the materials which are designed
by the teacher for a Cooperative Learning, can be modified to other activity from the use of the
existing materials and thus develop a discipline that is not equal to the previous one.

Applicability based on teaching experience

In our first experiences as teachers we could realize that this method is successful if you
implement in a good way and motivate your students explaining the importance to work in
groups. When implemented well, cooperative learning encourages achievement, student
discussion, active learning, student confidence, and motivation. The skills students develop
while collaborating with others are different from the skills students develop while working
independently. Using cooperative groups to accomplish academic tasks not only provides
opportunities for students to develop interpersonal skills, also gives them authentic experiences
that will help them be successful in their future careers.
When beginning to use cooperative learning with students, it is also important to establish team
norms. Team norms are guidelines or rules governing how group members agree to work
together. If we designed well, can help to create a safe and supportive atmosphere.

Furthermore is very important the kind of activity that we are going to work through this method,
depending of the level and the characteristics of the students.
Some challenges of using cooperative learning include releasing the control of learning,
managing noise levels, resolving conflicts, and assessing student learning. Carefully structured
activities can help students learn the skills to work together successfully, and structured
discussion and reflection on group process can help avoid some problems.

Individual Reflections
Constanza Len:
From my personal point of view, the Cooperative Learning approach is a very useful method to
create a good environment in the classroom, both communication between the students and the
improve of knowledge for each of them. Also allow us, as a teachers, to have more control
about what the students are doing in class and monitor the activity of the groups. At the same
time most of the students improve their academic achievements and it is because they are
learning cooperatively and they are more active participants in the learning process, and
develop critical thinking skills.
This help us (teachers) because use this approach creates a more positive attitude toward
teachers, and creates a more positive attitude by teachers toward their students.
I will implement this method in my class, because I have to think that they are learning a new
language and work with their classmates at the same time could help them in order to they feel
more comfortable when they have to speak in another language or share information about an
specific topic.

Valeria Romn:
In my personal opinion , I believe that cooperative learning is one of the most useful
approaches, because the students learn more doing something in an active way ( they are the
protagonist and active participants of their learning). Also it is helps students to develop their
communications skills with their peers and teacher . This generate an stimulation of the critical
thinking and helps students clarify ideas allows discussion and debate respectfully, so students
learn and remember what theyve learned for a longer period of time.
As a future teacher , this approach could be great tool at the time to teach English,
because most of the students feel more comfortable to ask or resolve the doubts to their
classmates than to the teacher. In addition , every member of the group is important , so it
promotes and encourage the responsibility
Patricio Valdenegro:
From my experience as a student and now as a future teacher I can say that Cooperative
Learning has been and will be one of the most important and useful teaching strategies to
develop essential students skills, such as communicative which is the base of this method
through interaction with others. Along with improving academic learning, cooperative learning
also helps students engage in thoughtful discourse and examine different perspectives, and it
has been proven to increase students' responsibilities, self-esteem, motivation, and empathy,
creating and ideal learning environment which is something that we will have to do in our future
profession, create, promote values and make sure that everything works to achieve meaningful
learning. Consequently the use of this teaching method will help us in the knowledge delivery
and to promote the importance that interaction within a group has in school and social and
cultural life.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, teamwork, either in pairs or in a small group of students, is very effective not
only for teaching languages, but also works very well in other areas of education. The most of
the time that the teacher implements this method, is to change the pace of the classes in order
to make it not so monotonous, and so that the students to participate actively in the class; and
sometimes the activities given by the teacher are not necessary cooperative. to make the
learning meaningful in all the students in a group work, this must be through Cooperative
Learning (CL) and this theory should be integrated actively by the teacher in the works of pairs
or groups. The focus of why the groups alternatives must to be planned, is because the main
objective of this, is the interaction between the members of the group and create a successful
communication in order to contribute to eachs other learning. Other approaches and methods
of teaching can collaborated with the use of cooperative learning to generate a most complete
meaningful learning in the students.

(Richards & Rodgers, Second Edition 2001)

References
Duran, D., & Vidal, V. (1a Edicin, Febrero 2004). Tutora entre iguales: de la teora a la
prctica. Espaa: GRA, de IRIF, S.L.
Johnson, D. R. (1994). Cooperative Learning in the Classroom.
Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (Second Edition 2001). Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching. Cambridge Language Teaching Library .

Diseo de Ambientes de Aprendizaje

Pedagoga en Ingls
Escuela de Educacin

Cooperative Learning

Students:

Constanza Len
Valeria Romn
Patricio Valdenegro

Teacher:
Date:

Carmen Gloria Espinoza

April 27th, 2016.