The Application Of Cooperative Learning In The Teaching Of English Reading In Higher Vocational Institution

Reading is one of the most important skills in the teaching of English in higher vocational college and the ability of reading is closely connected with that of listening, speaking, writing and translating. Therefore the question of how to improve the effectiveness of English reading teaching has always been the focus of both theoretical and practical educators. As a kind of creative and effective teaching theory and strategy system, recently cooperative learning has been widely adopted in college English teaching. Numerous studies in college shows that it has significant effect on improving students’ academic achievements, classroom atmosphere, students’ interest in English learning and the relationships between students.Generally speaking, the English proficiency of students in higher vocational institutions is not as good as that of the students in important universities. And recently it is increasingly popular to apply cooperative learning in the teaching of reading in higher vocational institutions to make it an effective way for the improvement of students’comprehensive ability. In order to investigate the application of Cooperative Learning in the teaching of English reading in higher vocational institution, the researcher conducted this study for15weeks in which the students of Logistics Management in Class4, Grade2012and the students of Horsemanship Economy in the same grade in Wuhan Commercial Service Institution were selected as the participants with one class using the cooperative learning method and the other the regular teaching method. Altogether, there are59participants with33from the experimental class and26from the control class. The researcher conducted the pretest and questionnaire one at the beginning of the semester in both the two classes to see their basic conditions before the experiment. After15weeks, posttest and questionnaire two were conducted in the two classes and the interview was carried out only in the experimental class to see the effectiveness of Cooperative Learning after the experiment.By estimating and analyzing the collected data and information, the author finds that cooperative learning has a significant positive effect on the academic achievements in English reading, interest, classroom atmosphere, and participation while no significant difference is shown in the social skills of the students in the experimental class. The results show that cooperative learning is an effective learning method in the teaching of reading in higher vocational institution for it has positive effects on the students in many aspects. Based on the analysis of the factors affecting the application of cooperative learning, the researcher further promotes some specific suggestions for the application of Cooperative Learning in the teaching of English reading.