A Study Of The Application Of Cooperative Learning Of Art Students In University English Reading Class

Reading teaching has always been an important part of college English teaching. Traditional reading teaching pattern exists the following disadvantages. Many researchers have made some experiments to reveal the following limitations:1) In traditional teaching way, reading teaching is a teacher-centered instruction with too much attention awarded to the teaching of grammar and vocabulary; and ignores reading abilities of discourse analysis;2) Classroom is teacher-centered mode;3) Students lack initiative to study on their own and have no consciousness to participate activities in classroom, etc. The traditional teaching had many problems in teaching. So based on the current situation, teachers and students all need to try new teaching mode to improve the current situation.There is a great need to reflect on the teaching methods in the English reading classroom and make some changes. Among the various teaching models, cooperative learning is quite practical. Cooperative learning is a kind of class technique that encourages students to perform all kinds of learning activities in heterogeneous groups of four to six. It emphasizes the student-centered classroom, the teacher acts as guide, organizer, cooperator; group members complete the tasks by cooperating, and attempt to promote the collaboration between teacher-student and student-student interactions. Many researches at home and abroad have proved that cooperative learning plays an active part in improving motivation and academic achievements. Although there is a considerable and growing limited amount of literature on cooperative learning in mainstream education, there have been few recent accounts of its application to college education. So it is quite necessary to do research into cooperative learning in English reading. Art students are a special kind of students, who are different from the ordinary university students, and English reading learning has many problems, such as reading ability, learning motivation and attitude are lower than the ordinary university students. As a result, the author puts forward group cooperative learning teaching mode to implement of art student in college.The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the practicability of the art students in college English reading teaching, and effect of cooperative learning in reading teaching and the feedback of art students. The research questions are set as follows:1) After the first semester, compared with that at the beginning of the semester, can cooperative learning make art students more interested and confident in learning English reading than the traditional teaching model? What are the reasons for those changing?2) Can cooperative learning enhance art students’English reading academic achievement?3) What are the advantages and limitations of cooperative learning? The40subjects of this research are first-year students’majoring in Art Department in Hubei Polytechnic University. The research lasted four months. Art students exist many difficulties to study English. Meanwhile, the current teaching mode can’t stimulate the students’creation and motivation. The experimental subjects are freshmen. They have desire to learn English well. So the author wants to try new mode to improve the current situation. So this class adapted cooperative learning methods. The same English reading tests and questionnaires were conducted in the class before and after the research. In the thesis the author used the following methods:interview, questionnaire and test. The quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS13.0.Testing results indicate that the advantage of cooperative learning in reading teaching is indisputable. The process of cooperative learning can stimulate students’reading interest, practice their reading skills and enhance their motivation to use consciously English for communication, thereby improve students’English reading comprehension.. The survey shows that most students like this new mode, and they think application of cooperative learning makes learning simple and easy. The students complete the task with their members so as to promote friendship and reduce anxiety. In addition, the teacher integrates reading strategies and discourse analysis into cooperative activities and drills repeatedly. So the dull way of reading teaching and learning is changed. However, there are some problems in the experiment of carrying out activities:It’s hard to control of time and discipline; and students have no interest to take part in the learning activities. Such problems as how to improve the efficiency of cooperation in the limited time and how to strengthen the studnets’sense of participation await for further research.In the summary section of this thesis, the author provided several suggestions on how to implement effectively cooperative reading teaching in English reading classroom.