협동학습을 통한 대학영어 수업이 학생들의 영어능력과 사회적 기술에 미치는 영향

The effects of college English classes using cooperative learning on students’ English proficiency and social skills

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of college English classes using cooperative learning on students’ English proficiency and social skills. For the study, the research was implemented for 15 weeks with fifty-eight Korean university students. Thirty-one of them took the English classes using cooperative learning as an experimental group and the others took the English classes traditionally as a control group. The results were as follows. First, the experimental group showed more improvement in their English proficiency than the control group although there wasn’t a statistical difference between the both. This suggests that cooperative learning can be effective in college English classes. Second, social skills of the experimental group were improved more than those of the control group, which showed a statistical difference. ‘Initiative in socialization’, ‘Checking for understanding’, and ‘equal participation and accountability’ in social skills of the experimental group showed more improvements in post-test than in pre-test, which showed a statistical difference. This finding indicates that cooperative learning for English classes has a positive influence on students’ social skills as well as their proficiency. Based on the study, some guidelines for effective English classes were suggested.