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face interaction, the students’ opportunities to promote success can be maximized.
d. Social skills. In order to coordinate efforts to achieve mutual goals, students
must: 1 get to know and trust each other, 2 communicate accurately and unambiguously, 3 accept and support each other, and 4 resolve conflict
constructively. e.
Group processing. Group processing exists when group members are discussing how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective
working relationships. Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviours to continue
or change. Continuous improvement of the processes of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together and determining
how group effectiveness can be enhanced.
3. Advantages of Cooperative Language Learning
According to Slavin 1995, the advantages of cooperative learning can be defined into two categories: motivational and cognitive.
a. Motivational
In cooperative learning, students are required to work together because individuals’ goals can be attained if the group is successful. In other
words, the students need to encourage each other to do whatever it needs to help the group to succeed. The rewards such as praise and
encouragement given to the groups that do well will create an
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interpersonal motivation from the students to their efforts during the cooperative work.
b. Cognitive
Cognitive theories emphasize the effects of working together in itself whether or not the groups are trying to achieve a group goal. The
cognitive theories fall into two major categories: developmental theories and cognitive elaboration theories. Developmental theories highlight the
interaction among children on appropriate tasks can increase their mastery of critical concept. Students will learn from each other during
the cooperative learning as when they are discussing a problem, cognitive conflict will arise, inadequate reasoning will be exposed, and higher-
quality understandings will emerge. Damon, 1984; Murray, 1982 in Slavin 1995.
Cognitive elaboration theories emphasize on the recalling information from memories. If students are about to retain some sort of information in
the memory and related to information already in memory, they must be engaged in cognitive restructuring or elaboration activities to get the
materials. Explaining the materials to someone else is considered as the most effective means of elaboration. Slavin 1995
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4. Student Teams-Achievement Divisions STAD
STAD is one of the simplest and one of the most extensively researched cooperative learning. STAD is also widely applied to teach a wide range of
grades and subjects. STAD generally consists of five key components: 1.
Class presentations The materials are initially presented in class presentations. This includes
lecture-discussion, direct instruction to tasks, and audiovisual presentations. The students have to pay careful attention for they have to
understand completely the lesson presented. By doing so, they are expected to do well on the quizzes.
2. Teams
In STAD, teams are composed of four or five students mixed in academic performance, sex, and race or ethnicity, in which each member has a
responsibility to make sure that their teammates are learning as well as preparing for the quizzes. In teams, the activities include discussing
problems together, comparing answers, and correcting mistakes made by teammates. This is the most important feature in STAD as it allows
students to do well for the team and allows the team to help its members. 3.
Quizzes After a period of team practice, students take individual quizzes in which
they are not allowed to help each other. This way, students are responsible for knowing the materials.
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4. Individual improvement scores
The success is based on improvements points. Students’ quiz scores are compared to their own past average, and points are given to each team
based on the degree to which students work harder and perform better than their earlier performance.
5. Team recognition
Team recognition is given to the team which achieves the determined criterion. The teams are not competing with each other, but they have to
do well on the quizzes in order to get their best scores. The team recognition can be in the form of certificates or other rewards
5. Procedures of Implementing STAD
