The article that I read is “Cooperative Learning in Acquisition of the English Language

Skills” by Azlem Yavuz and Ali Arslan. The study focus on cooperative learning approach in
non-native learners. The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of cooperative
learning on the achievements of high school students in an English course that focus on
grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension. The study is carried out in 66
high school students from Turkey. The researcher comparing between ‘control group’ which
stand for the group of students that learn using a traditional approach and ‘experimental
group’ that consist of students that learn using a cooperative learning approach. For
experimental group, the researcher used a Jigsaw technique in a small group with 6 students
each group. Data was collected using the students’ pre-test and post-tests and make a
comparison between this two tests. The results indicate that cooperative learning was a
successful in the development of students’ grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading skills
compare to traditional method.

There are a few advantages and disadvantages in implement cooperative learning

approach. The first advantages of cooperative learning are the group goal. The main goal for
cooperative learning approach is the group achievement and not individual. However, each
student need to find their own goal to make sure that they are participate in the group task.
This approach also will indirectly teach the students to be responsible in handling the project
as to reach their mutual goal. The students need to help, support and encourage each other in
order for the learning objective to meet. This will motivate them to do the task given.

Other than that, cooperative learning approach improve a social skills of the students. In
order for the students to finish their task, they need to interact with heterogeneous way. This
will increase their social skills as they got to practise their English. Cooperative learning
approach will also increase the motivation of the students as they see their friends support
their ideas. Cooperative learning approach also implement active learning for the students. In
cooperative learning the students will share their opinions and open an environment for them
to educate each other. Thus, they can construct all of their ideas together. An active learner
usually better than passive listener. Most of passive listener tends to be quite although they
have a question because they are not comfortable to be vocal in the classroom. That why the
researcher wants to open an environment where all students do not feel intimidated with their
peers and teachers.
 Nevertheless, there are still disadvantages in cooperative learning such as the large group
and a large number of students. Large groups will make some students feel left behind. As we
all know, there are two types of students which are introvert and extrovert students. If the
teachers conduct the cooperative learning in a large group, some of the students would be
passive and let other students do all the task. Other than that, the introvert’s idea will not be
listen by other group members. This will make the individual objective not meet.

My critic for this article are the researchers focus on too many skills such as vocabulary,
grammar, listening and speaking skills. Thus, this will lead to the researcher could not find
the absolute reasons to why traditional way failed to improve students’ abilities. The results in
this study only touch on the surface and nothing much. For example, the researcher found
that reading skills in cooperative learning are better but only with slight differences while
listening skill are way better in 57% compare to traditional way. As a reader, I do not know
the factors as to why listening skill has a larger gaps compare to reading skill. While there is
weakness in this article, there are also strength such as the researchers used a lot of citation
from other sources to support their evidence in making this study. Consequently, it will make
their study more reliable and strong. Most of their sources are from the newest research
which show that they compare to the latest studies.

While I know students communicating with each other is good, I do think that
cooperative learning approach will be a little tough for the teacher to handle the classroom
management while using this approach. This is because the classroom will be noisy and
probably disturbing the nearest class (Jacobs & Loh,2003). Teacher need to make sure that
their student’s communicate with each other regarding the topic learn and not something else.
Aside from this, the participation of the students also important because without the students’
involvement in the group activities, the cooperative learning objective will be fail.

Cooperative learning approach is suitable to be using in Malaysia classroom. Our

education system supports the use of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). For
example, in 2013, Ministry of Education has implement a PT3 and abolish PMR. PT3 and
MUET focus more on students’ ability in all four skills which are listening, speaking, reading
and writing. In order to make sure that the students expert in all these skills, the teacher can
use cooperative learning as a medium of teaching. There are many articles, not only this one,
have said that cooperative learning approach are one of the successful approach. For
example, there are studied that been conducted in University Sains Malaysia(USM) about
cooperative learning skills in enhance writing skills (Mohamed,2008). It is show that,
teaching pre-university students using cooperative learning in writing will improve their
skills and their idea will be wider. They also felt like the cooperative learning is a non-stress
environment for them to learn subsequently it is easier for them to comprehend new
knowledges.

In the conclusion, cooperative learning approach increase the English skills of

students and it is such an effective approach. The method that been used by this research are
really suitable as they compare the achievement of the students themselves instead of another
student. This articles in details of the advantages in using cooperative learning and encourage
the reader to use it. There are many other studies that support cooperative learning which
show that this approach is stable. In using cooperative learning, it will make the students
realize their learning technique as some student could gain more knowledge by
communicating compare to listening to teacher teaching alone.

References
Jacobs, G. M., & Loh, W. I. (2003). Using cooperative learning in large classes. In M.
Cherian & R. Mau (Eds.), Large classes (pp. 142-157). Singapore: McGraw-Hill.

Mohamed, A. R. (2008). Using Cooperative Learning Approach to Enhance Writing Skills of

Pre-University Students. Educationist.

Yuvus, O., & Arslan, A. (2018). Cooperative Learning in Acquisition of the English
Language. European Journal of Educational, 591 - 600.