The Application Of Jigsaw Cooperative Learning In EFL Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

Jigsaw is a cooperative technique in which the members of each cooperative group become experts on different aspects of one topic of the study. After becoming experts on the assigned subtopic, teammates teach one another. The present study investigated the impact of Jigsaw on students’reading achievement of English as a foreign language (EFL) and experimental class students’perceptions of their Jigsaw experience.This research was carried out through an experimental design with experimental class and control class. The study lasted for sixteen weeks from September 1st,2014 to January 1st,2015. The teaching activities all took place in the classrooms within about 40-min reading class. The teacher taught the two classes used the same teaching material- New Senior English for China Student’s (Book 1& Book 2) published by People’s Education Press (2013) with the same teaching equipment 94 students of Grade one in Lanzhou Northwest High School were selected, and they are from two parallel classes:one experimental and one control. The experimental class received instruction according to Jigsaw whereas the control class was instructed via teacher centered teaching method.A pretest and a post-test were conducted to find out changes in students’ reading achievement In order to investigate students’ perceptions of their Jigsaw experience, forty-six students in experimental class responded to a questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 17.0) was used by the researcher to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire and the tests. Findings indicate that Jigsaw can improve students’ reading achievement and Jigsaw is a more effective technique in improving learners’ reading achievement whereas teacher centered teaching method did not enhance reading achievement significantly. Furthermore, the results revealed that the students’ perceptions of Jigsaw cooperative experience tend to be on the positive side. There were significant differences between high and low achievers and between males and females participants’perceptions of the Jigsaw experience. In addition, this research proposes some teaching implications, suggestions and also points out the limitations of this study to provide convenience for the further study in the future.