Coope rative Learning in English Lessons—It ReallY Works！
　　Nofei—Arbel at Kibbutz Ginossar is an experimental school where I’vebeen teaching English for many years and I have been trying out alternativemethods for the teaching of languages．Three years ago，when I firstinitiated to apply cooperative learning techniques into my classes，it waswelcomed as a positive step in this direction．Since then，I have found thatCL（cooperative learning）not only develops the pupils’ability to read andwrite but，as the term suggests，it also enhances the pupils’social skills andacademic skills as well．In order to understand how CL can enhance pupils’learning，we haveto remember in mind that having the pupils sit in groups to work on a task isnot the same as forming CL groups．So，what is Cooperative Learning？Here is a quick reminder of what CL is all about．CL has its roots inSTAD which was developed by Slavin in the USA and was further developedby Sharan and Lazarowitz in Israel．It is important to mention that CL is aneclectic（兼收并蓄的）method which draws from different fields related toteaching，namely，sociology，linguistics，psychology and 80 on．Perhapshere lies its strength as CL combines the“Whole Language’’approach tolearning a language by which the holistic（全面的）elements are located inthe connections between the basic skills of the language and the needs of the1earner，i．e．the teacher uses the course bOok as well as other resources tocreate students’interest and motivation（動(dòng)機(jī)）．