Application Of Cooperative Learning To English Reading Teaching In Rural Junior Middle School

Reading plays a very important role in English learning, which students in rural juniormiddle find the most difficult in learning English. Influenced by the traditional“teacher-centered” learning method, students read passively and with little interest andmotivation. Many researches show that learning depends on the learner rather than the teacher,so cooperative student-centered learning gives improvement to rural junior middle schoolstudents’ English reading.The author chose two classes which had the similar English level in a rural juniormiddle school as the subjects. One was experimental class who were taught in cooperativeway and the other was control class who were taught in the traditional way. The experimentlasted4months. Tests, questionnaires and interviews were used in the research in order toprove the advantages in cooperative learning method comparing with the traditional teachingmethod.The thesis is divided into four parts besides the introduction and the conclusion. Firstly,an overall of cooperative learning including definitions and the actual state at home andabroad is presented. Secondly, the author introduces cooperative learning and English readingfrom two aspects. Next is the main part of this thesis. In this part, the author introduces howto apply cooperative learning to English reading class in rural junior middle school. Then theauthor collects and analyzes the data. From the data, the author approves three hypotheses asfollows: 1. Cooperative learning method can take more improvement in English reading ofstudents in rural junior middle school.2. Cooperative learning method influences students’ reading ability in linguistic factorsof English reading, such as new words and grammars.3. Cooperative learning method influences students reading ability in non-linguisticfactors of English reading including background information, interest, self-confidence andreading strategies.