An Empirical Study On Cooperative Learning In English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

English is an important course in junior high school in China.English reading as a basic language skills,benefits other English skills,like listening,speaking,writing,and translating.Until now,the traditional teaching method is dominant in English reading class.For one thing,traditional teaching method puts more attention on vocabulary and grammar.For another,the teaching in reading is teacher-oriented.As a result,it is difficult for English teachers to promote students’ interest in English reading.Therefore,it is so urgent to change teachers’ teaching method,and promote students’ abilities to speak and write in English.In this way,teachers’ teaching method can be improved.At the same time,the center of reading teaching will transfers from teachers to students through the new method.In the 1820 s,cooperative learning was first put forward by American scholar.It is a teaching method,which needs four to six students to accomplish tasks in heterogeneous group.During the process of cooperative learning,students not only enhance their interest in learning English,but also learn how to interact with others.This research attempts to answer the following two questions:1.Can cooperative learning approach improve students’ attitudes toward English reading? Why?2.Does the cooperative learning approach improve students’ English reading achievements? How?This research combines the qualitative and quantitative analysis to answer the above questions.It is conducted among students from junior high school.The experiment lasts for approximately four months.There are 108 subjects in this research in which 54 students are in experimental class,and other 54 students are in control class.Cooperative learning is used to the experimental class,while the traditional reading teaching approach is used in control class.In the experiment,the following research instruments SPSS,questionnaire,two test papers and interviews are used to answer the research questions.The results of the experiment indicate that cooperative learning is an effective way.In one way,it can improve students’ attitudes toward English reading.In another,it can improve students’ English reading achievements as well.