An Empirical Study On Cooperative Learning In Junior English Reading Teaching And Reading Ability

Reading is an important skill in language learning. How to develop the students’ interest in English reading is one of the main purposes in teaching. As long as the students are interested in reading, they will surely improve their reading ability gradually. However, lacking of interest will surly lead to the students’poor academic achievement. How to arouse the students’interest in the English reading and improve their reading ability is worth our attention.This research attempts to develop junior students’reading ability and reading interest by adopting the cooperative learning methods in the English reading class. It tries to answer the following two questions1) Can cooperative learning improve the junior middle school students’ reading ability?2) Can cooperative learning make students be more interested in the Englis h reading classes?The participants in this study were108students of Junior Two from Dongyuan Experimental Middle school of Heyuan, who were randomly assigned to the experimental class (N=54) and the control class (N=54). During the experiment, the control class was instructed with conventional approach while the experimental class was instructed with cooperative learning methods when having the English reading class. The experiment lasted for4months. Data were collected and analyzed from the pre-experiment questionnaire and post-experiment questionnaire the pretest and posttest as well as an interview. The results led to the following findings:Firstly, the reading ability of the experimental class has been increased to a certain extent.Secondly, after the training, the experimental class participants show more interest in the English reading than before. They were more willing to take part in the reading activities.Results of the study show that to some degree cooperative learning method is an effective way to improve the junior middle school students’reading ability and arouse their interest in reading. At the same time, students’in team spirit have also improved through cooperative learning...