Teachers' beliefs and attitudes about the use of cooperative learning in local primary English classrooms

Abstract

Many researches studies indicate that cooperative learning has a lot of positive impacts on students’ learning including academic performance, social skills and cognitive skills. Cooperative learning is also found to help students’ success in their learning. This study reports the findings of 6 in-service primary English teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards the use of cooperative learning in Hong Kong’s classrooms. Teachers with different years of teaching experiences working in the same school were interviewed to share their views on the use of cooperative learning and the factors that influence their use of cooperative learning. The result showed that teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about the use of cooperative learning were generally positive though they encountered some challenges during their implementation. The results are discussed based on the three research questions and recommendations are made for the school and government to consider the kind of support teachers need in implementing cooperative learning more successfully in Hong Kong.