A Case Study Of Cooperative Learning In English Reading Class Of A Senior High School: A Constructivist Perspective

Reading, one of the vital approaches for learners to communicate information, hasbecome one of the most important parts of English teaching in China’s senior high schools.However, the teacher-centered teaching approach is still the mainstream in China’s readingclass, with the focuses on vocabulary, grammar, or translation of texts. Consequently, thestudents,, a container of the teaching stuff, fail to effectively develop their reading ability.Aiming to effectively improve the students’ reading ability, the author applied theconstructivist learning theory in English reading instruction, taking the student-centeredteaching approach and emphasizing teacher–student interacion and student-studentcooperation.The author carried out an experiment, attempting to explore the following twoquestions:1) Does teacher–student interaction enhance students’ interest and confidence inreading?2) Does student–student cooperation improve the students’ readning ability?The subjects of this experiment were80high school students from two classes in a highschool in Suzhou city, with one of the classes as the experimental group and the other asthe control group. During the experiment, the cooperative teaching and learning model wasimplemented in the experimental class,while the traditional instruction method was appliedin the control class.After the experiment of16weeks, the author compared and analyzed the data fromthe pretest and posttest, interviews and questionnaires. And the author’s major findings aresummarized as follows:1)Teacher–student interaction did enhance the students’ interestand confidence in reading.2)The student–student cooperation did improve the students’reading ability. During the cooperative learning process, the teacher played the role of a guide and cooperator, promoting the interaction between the teacher and sutdents bydesigning cooperative learning situations and assigning cooperative learning tasksfacilitating the students constructing meanings in their reading. Therefore，the students’interest and self–confidence in reading were enhanced, and the students’ reading abilitywas developed effectively.