The Influence of Different Grouping Methods on Junior High School Students'''' Oral Performance in Mixed-ability Classroom

• Main Authors: Yi-Wen Huang, 黃怡文
• Other Authors: Rueih-Ling Fahn
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/08505439895169498023

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系 === 91 === The Communicative Approach has been the mainstream of English teaching in Taiwan. According to the Communicative Approach, English is learned as a communicative tool in daily life, and thus, students’ oral ability is highly emphasized. However, in most junior high schools in Taiwan, the class size is too large that students could not have sufficient opportunities to practice speaking English, and teachers could not take care of each student’s individual differences because of the various levels of students. Cooperative learning, learning by helping one another within group members, has been evidenced an effective teaching method in many learning fields (Chen, 1999; Hooper, 1992; Liang, 2002, Skon, 1981; Yager, Johnson, Johnson, & Snider, 1986; Yu, 1995). In cooperative learning classrooms, the positive and frequent interaction among group members not only provides students opportunities to negotiate their ideas but also takes care of their individual differences. Therefore, cooperative learning is regarded as an alternative to implement the communicative-oriented tasks in large mixed-ability classrooms. This study tried to investigate how different ability grouping methods influence junior high school students’ oral performance under the circumstance of cooperative leaning. One hundred and four eighth-grade junior high students in Hsin Chuang City were divided into a control class, using non-cooperative grouping method, and two experimental classes, using the fully mixed-ability grouping method and the partly mixed-ability grouping method. Their oral performance was assessed according to their oral coherence of picture-description tasks as well as the correct use of past tense verbs. The results revealed that cooperative learning grouping methods have positive effect on improving junior high school students’ long-term oral fluency, especially the fully mixed-ability grouping method. Of all levels of students, the intermediate-level students benefited the most from cooperative learning to improve their oral coherence.