Cooperative and Collaborative Learning

The type of learning in which a group learning activity is dependent on the socially
structured exchange of information between learners is called cooperative learning
model. There is also collaborative learning and within it the learner engages with more
capable others, like teachers, advanced peers, etc., who provide assistance and guidance.
Cooperative learning is a specific kind of collaborative working.
Cooperative learning refers to students work in pairs and groups, to the act of them
sharing information and helping each other. During this process they become a team,
working together in order to achieve success. Group work is a generic term in which two
or more students are assigned a task that also involves collaboration and self-initiated
language. What is of great importance is that those group works consist of six or fewer
students in order for them to have an opportunity to speak and express their opinion. As
to collaborative learning, here we have teacher and student working together in order to
pursue goals and objectives. The models of collaborative learning have been developed
within social constructivist schools of thought to promote communities of learners that
cut across the usual hierarchies of students and teachers. What group work does is:
1. Generates interactive language- In traditional language classes there is a usual
procedure when teacher lectures, conduct drills, and try to give students at least a few
seconds to talk in the class. Group work is what solves this problem giving students many
opportunities to speak. It was estimated that if just half of one class time were spent in
group work, individual practice time would be increased five-fold over work-class
traditional methodology.
2. Offers an embracing affective climate- Important here is the security of a smaller
group of students where each individual is not so vulnerable to the critics and rejection of
their peers. It was proved that using this type of learning those timid and shy students,
quite suddenly, become vocal participants in this process, start to cooperate with each
other and become more and more motivated.
3. Promotes learner responsibility and autonomy- In a traditionally held class for
students is easier to hide behind their talkative, extrovert peers and not to pay attention to
what others are saying. Students than relax and do not do much in the class, so group
works are the ones that call to responsibility and doing your regular duties and thus
progress. It is extremely difficult to hide in a small group.
4. It is a step toward individualizing instruction- Each and every individual differs, they
all have specific personalities and characters. If they are put in small groups, the chances
of achieving their goals get higher and they help one another in doing it. What is very
important is for teacher to separate them carefully by their abilities and to give different
tasks to different groups.
There are also some challenges of cooperative learning such as teacher no longer having
control of the class, students use of native language, teacher not being able to monitor all
the groups at once, different learning styles, personality differences and many others.
Group work can go wrong if it is not carefully prepared, well executed and monitored. Of
even bigger importance is pair work and it includes:
1. practicing dialogues with a partner;

2. simple question-and-answer exercises;

3. performing certain meaningful substitution drills;
4. quick brainstorming activities;
5. checking written work with each other;
6. preparation for merging with a larger group and others.
Selecting an appropriate task is the first step in promoting group work. These are the
typical group tasks: games (activities that formalize techniques into units); role-play and
simulation (giving a role to one or more members of a group, assigning an objective or
purpose that participants must accomplish); drama (containing a pre-planned story line
and script); projects; interview (especially for pair work, can be very structured in terms
of information that is sought and the grammatical difficulty and variety); brainstorming
(involves students in a rapid-fire, free-associating listing of concepts or ideas or feelings
relevant to some topic or context); information gap (the objective is to convey or request
information); jigsaw , and many others.
To my mind, this type of learning the second language is of great importance because
the learners get the chance to actively participate, respect is given to every member,
diversity is celebrated, all contributions are valued and students invest in their own
learning. It gives students the chance to show their abilities and understanding of the
given matter thus improving the process of learning and stimulating both student and
teacher.

References:
1. H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy, Second Edition;
2. http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/pdf/collab.pdf
3. http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/c-learn/what-is-cl.html
4. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/coopcollab/index.html