Investigating The Effectiveness Of Cooperative Learning In Enriching Student's Technical Vocabulary During Translation Activities

Résumé: Language learning is a complex process where vocabulary acquisition is important. Generally speaking, vocabulary learning/ teaching is a challenging task for teachers because it demands the selection of the appropriate method or technique in order to achieve the required objectives The instruction of such aspect becomes more complicated when english is taught to other specialties where learners suffer from the problem of learning the terms related to their field of study as they cannot retrieve them whenever needed. On the basis of this view, the present study aims at facilitating this task by integrating a new approach called cooperative language learning. To investigate the effectiveness of cooperative language learning in teaching technical vocabulary, firstly, an experimental method is used with a quasi-experimental design. The participants were fifty LMD students of biology department at Larbi Ben M'Hidi University, Oum-El-Bouaghi. They were divided into two groups: the control group and the experimental group. The two groups were pre-tested in the first meeting by administering a test that consists of four different vocabulary activities. Then, both groups received the treatment in which the control group members were taught technical vocabulary by their teacher following the ordinary method (direct translation), whereas, the experimental group members were exposed to cooperative language learning (Jigsaw I) as an alternative approach to facilitate technical vocabulary learning. After that, a post-test was administered and it was the same as the pre-test. The findings of the study support the use of cooperative language learning as an effective approach in comparison with the traditional one. These positive results encourage the ESP teachers to change the traditional technique (translation) for the most effective one cooperative language learning.

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