The Effects Of Cooperative Learning Mode On Junior High School Students’ Foreign Language Enjoyment And Reading Proficiency

Reading instruction is an essential part of English teaching in junior high school.Previous studies show that students’ reading proficiency is influenced not only by language knowledge and skills but also by other factors such as emotions and teaching modes.The enjoyment of the foreign language(FL)and a sound teaching mode not only can improve students’ reading learning experience but also facilitate them to construct knowledge actively through group cooperation,which positively impacts students’ learning proficiency.However,some teachers focus too much on explaining language knowledge and skills while neglecting students’ emotional experience and cooperative learning when teaching reading.Therefore,this study attempts to apply the cooperative learning(CL)mode in junior high school English reading teaching to explore its effects on students’ foreign language enjoyment(FLE)and reading proficiency.This study is based on social interdependence theory,constructivism,and broaden-and-build theory to investigate the following three questions:(1)What are the effects of CL mode on junior high school students’ FLE?(2)What are the effects of CL mode on junior high school students’ English reading proficiency?(3)What is the correlation between junior high school students’ FLE and reading proficiency in the CL context? The research participants of this study are 96 Grade Eight junior high school students from two parallel classes in Guangzhou.In the 12-week teaching experiment,the CL mode is applied to teach reading in the Experimental Class(EC),and students complete the learning activities mainly through group cooperation.In contrast,the PWP teaching mode continues to be used in the Control Class(CC),and students independently finish the learning activities most of the time.This thesis adopts the FLE scale,reading test papers,and a semi-structured interview to collect research data.Moreover,SPSS.26 is taken to conduct Independent Samples T-Test,Paired Samples T-Test,and Pearson Correlation test on quantitative data.Then the findings of this thesis can be drawn:(1)CL mode significantly enhances junior high school students’ overall FLE.Specifically,it has the most significant impact on improving students’ Enjoyment of Student Support,followed by Enjoyment of Teacher Support,and finally,Enjoyment of English Learning.(2)CL mode can effectively improve junior high school students’ English reading proficiency compared to PWP teaching mode.Specifically,it has a more positive impact on students with low to moderate scores.However,it can not significantly influence students with high scores.(3)In the CL context,there is a significantly high positive relationship between students’ FLE and reading proficiency.Specifically,students’ reading proficiency is highly positively correlated with the Enjoyment of English Learning and moderately positively correlated with the Enjoyment of Student Support and the Enjoyment of Teacher Support.This study confirms the effects of CL mode on junior high school students’ FLE and reading proficiency.Moreover,it analyzes the possible reasons contributing to the positive impacts of CL mode on students’ FLE and reading proficiency.In practical junior high school English reading instruction,teachers can apply CL mode to enhance students’ FLE and reading proficiency by creating a positive learning environment,providing more teacher support,and promoting students’ cooperation.However,they should pay attention to the basic elements of CL when adopting this mode.Furthermore,they should create reasonable learning activities and CL assessment mechanisms to improve the effectiveness of CL.