| Summary: | Research in cooperative learning in education generally and second language education in
particular has documented the apparently successful and simultaneous achievement of a number
of educational goals. For second language learners, these goals include developing the second
language (L2), maintaining the first language (L1), and acquiring content knowledge. However,
little research has examined the opinions of the learners themselves with regard to cooperative
learning together with the process of cooperative interaction. This study explores the opinions
and interactions of Chinese immigrant students engaging in cooperative learning in English as a
second language (ESL) classes.
Drawing on qualitative research and discourse analysis traditions, the study used multiple
methods of data collection in a Canadian secondary school ESL program: (1) individual
interviews were carried out with 49 Chinese students; (2) 120 hours of observations in natural
classroom settings were conducted; and (3) 30 hours of audio taped recordings of Chinese
students' interactions during cooperative learning activities were also analyzed.
The findings of the study present a complex picture of cooperative learning in the ESL
classroom. The Chinese students seemed to be sitting on the horns of cooperative learning
dilemmas between cooperation and individualism, between achieving results and sharing
understandings of the task, and between using L1 to help with L2 / content learning and
developing L2 for academic purposes. Particularly with cooperative learning goals of developing
L2, maintaining L1, and acquiring content knowledge, Chinese students had difficult choices to
make between developing L2 and maintaining L1, between using L1 for academic language and
developing academic language in L2, and between learning content in L1 and learning content in
L2.
At a detailed level, tensions and dilemmas that Chinese students confronted appear to be
intrinsic to the simultaneous pursuit of the three cooperative learning goals claimed for L2
learners. Cummins' (1991b, 1992) bilingual proficiency theory, which offers a possible
theoretical model of how these goals are related, needs to address the various conflicts and
dilemmas involved in these three cooperative learning goals. While recognizing other
contributing factors, this work suggests that cooperative learning dilemmas may arise from
conflicts of socially shared values and beliefs, and that discrepancies between Chinese students'
home educational culture and their present Canadian secondary school culture add a layer of
complexity to the dilemmatic situation of cooperative learning in an ESL context. === Education, Faculty of === Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of === Graduate
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