5. Cooperative Learning
Gokhale 1985 points out that cooperative learning refers to an instruction method in which the students at various performance levels work together in small
groups toward a common goal. The underlying theory of cooperative learning lays the socio-constructivist philosophy which views learning as the knowledge construction
within a particular social context Oxford, 1997. As a result, students learn from one another in the group Larsen-Freeman, 2000. Although the students hold different
level of ability, they are to work cooperatively in stead of competitively. Slavin 1994: 2 states that cooperative learning refers to a variety of teaching methods in
which students work in small groups to help one another learn academic content. It is not a new idea in education, but until recently it has only been used by few teachers
for limited purposes, such as occasional group projects or reports. Further, cooperative learning has wonderful benefits for relationships between students of
different ethnic backgrounds and between mainstreamed special education students and their classmates, adding another critical reason to use cooperative learning in
diverse classroom. Johnson and Johnson 1994 propose five essentials components of cooperative learning, they are as follows.
a. Positive Interdependence
Positive interdependence is the condition of working in a group and helping one another in order to reach the goal. A student could consider as successful person if his
or her group also succeed. There are two requirements of successful interdependence; 29
they are the efforts of each group member and unique contribution shared by every group member.
b Face To Face Promotive Interaction
Promotive interaction occurs when students foster and help one another in the efforts of achieving, producing, and completing the task. The characteristics of
promotive interaction involve providing efficient and effective help as well as assistance, exchanging the needed resources, processing information efficiently and
effectively, providing feedback to improve performance, considering the problem in greater insight, promoting higher quality of decision making, supporting each group
member to achieve mutual goal, showing trustworthiness among group member, motivating one another to achieve the goal, and reducing anxiety and stress.
c. Individual and Group Accountability
Every group member is responsible to contribute his or her work to obtain the goal. In so doing the individual performance is also assessed. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of the group to help their members who need assistance, support and encouragement.
d. Interpersonal and Small Group Skills
In cooperative learning, students have to work with others. Working in group let students to learn how to deal with other people and to be accustomed to interpersonal
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and small group skills such as trustworthiness, effective communication, conflict- resolution, decision making, and leadership.
e. Group Processing
The main idea of group processing is reflection. The reflection is to look what has been going on and to recite what should be maintained and should not. Through
this reflection, students are able to improve their work in order to achieve group effectiveness.
B. Theoretical Framework
Learning English especially for exposition text using audio-visual media is a new project assigned for the students in SMA Negeri 2 Yogyakarta. The English
teacher had just been implemented this project in the early 2008. In this project, the audio-visual media is used to organize an exposition text in the form of film. In
accomplishing this project, the students were free to decide their own theme and plot of the film as far as the story still in the exposition framework. After the students
finished this project, they are supposed to understand better on the function, the generic structure, and the characteristics of the exposition text. What students had just
learned through audio-visual media in learning exposition text was also supposed to be able to be stored in the students’ long term memory. Besides learning the theory of
exposition text, they could be able to make the visualization in the form of film of the script that they had composed. Moreover, learning through a project could supports
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