Shifting from teacher-centred to learner-centred approach to teaching English First Additional Language: the use of the Cooperative Learning Approach

Abstract

Historical antecedents to the establishment of cooperative learning precedes the second world war when Allport, Watson, Shaw, Mead and other social scientist began establishing cooperative learning theory after they found that group work was more effective and efficient in both quantity and quality, as well as, overall productivity when compared to working alone (Gilles and Adrian, 2003). The idea of cooperative learning gained much grounds when May and Doob (1937) researched and established that when people worked cooperatively, the synergic effect of their individual contribution to the group made them more successful than those who worked to complete the same goals independently. Over time, cooperative learning was embraced in the teaching and learning enterprise as the most effective approach when it comes to putting learners in the centre of teaching to make them work cooperatively. The motive behind embarking on this study was to investigate how English First Additional Language teachers use cooperative learning as a learner-centred approach to teach the subject and identify reasons why they use the approach.