Principles
Students are encouraged to think in terms of ‘positive interdependence,’ which means that the students are not thinking competitively and individualistically, but rather cooperatively and in terms of the group.
In cooperatively learning, students often stay together in the same groups for a period of time so they can learn how to work better together. The teacher usually assigns students to the groups so that the groups are mixed – males and females, different ethnic groups, different proficiency levels, etc. This allows students to learn from each other and also gives them practice in how to get along with people different from themselves.
Once again note the complementary between this trend and the ones presented in previous chapter. Cooperative learning groups can easily work on tasks from task-based approach to language instruction, for instance. Yet cooperative learning is similar to learner strategy training as well in that both require language to teach other skills in addition to teaching language.
The last methodological innovation we will consider in this chapter is multiple intelligence. Teachers who adopt this chapter is language, learning strategy, and social skills training, to address other qualities of language learners.