FOSTERING COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE METHODOLOGY COURSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA

Abstract

Cooperative learning is an established strategy designed to engage students actively in the teaching and learning process. It focuses not on individualistic or competitive efforts, but on group members’ support and encouragement of each other’s purposes to learn. Cooperative learning places emphasis on the belief that one member of the group cannot succeed unless the other members of the group succeed as well. Therefore cooperative learning is more than just placing students in groups to talk to each other on an assigned task as is normal practice in English language methodology courses, but a structured learning environment that is effective only if teacher educators understand that cooperation relies on the core principles of positive interdependence and individual accountability. This understanding is usually lacking in the type of group work given to English language student teachers. Therefore, despite the related merits of cooperative learning, effective implementation remains a challenge because of language educators’ use of instructional methods that resemble cooperative learning, but reward individualistic and competitive efforts as opposed to group performance. In the light of the foregoing, this conceptual paper, drawing from social interdependence theory, seeks to motivate for effective application of cooperative learning strategy in the training and development of English language teachers at the University of Botswana. In employing cooperative learning, the basic tenets of social interdependence theory should be applied. Careful consideration of these elements would ensure that teachers acquire not only subject matter knowledge but interdependent and social skills through teacher professional development as espoused in various education and policy documents in Botswana.