A Research On The Application Of Cooperative Learning In English Reading Teaching For The Senior High School Students

English reading teaching plays a very important role in senior English teaching. With the new curriculum reform, cooperative learning is gaining more and more popularity in the senior high school English teaching. It has become particularly important to help the students solve the problem of reading learning. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and other?s learning. Cooperative learning, a breakthrough and complement against traditional classroom instruction is an efficient approach, which can promote learner?s cognitive ability and improve their competence to use the language.The thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter one serves as the introduction. This part offers a brief description on the background, significance, aim and organization of the thesis. Chapter two is literature review. This part offers theoretical support for the study. Chapter three provides theoretical framework Chapter four provides a brief introduction to the research design. This part introduces research questions, experimental subjects, instruments and procedures of the experiment. The research questions are:(1). What is the present situation of English reading teaching in Ethnic Middle School in Dongxiang County?(2). Does the application of cooperative learning have a positive impact on students? reading ability in senior high school? Chapter five presents the data analysis and results which verifies the feasibility of cooperative learning in English reading teaching in high middle school. Chapter six draws a conclusion to the whole study and presents limitation and suggestions of the study.The present thesis introduces cooperative learning and the application in senior English reading, which is based on the analysis of the current state of reading teaching and learning in Ethnic Middle School in Dongxiang County. Using the cooperative learning aims at helping students enhance students? reading ability and English language proficiency, and to lay a good foundation for their lifelong learning.In the study, 71 students in Class3 and class4 in senior grade two were chosen to be the subjects in the teaching experiment. Class 4 took part in the research as the experimental class using cooperative learning in dairy teaching while class 3 as the control class used traditional teaching method. Before the experiment, a questionnaire was conducted in both the experimental class and the control class to obtain the information about the present situation of English reading teaching in Ethnic Middle School in Dongxiang. A pre-test and a post-test were carried out to find out changes in students? English language proficiency and their reading ability. In order to find out their thoughts, feelings or opinions of cooperative learning, after the experiment, ten students from the experimental class were interviewed with some questions. After the data was collected and analyzed, the following findings were obtained:(1) The method of cooperative learning in English teaching can be applied effectively in English reading teaching for senior students.(2) The application of cooperative learning in the English reading teaching indeed has a positive effect on senior students? improvement of reading skills and ability.In the end, the research still has some limitations. The subjects of the study are 71 students in Ethnic Middle School in Dongxiang County, and they can?t represent the whole middle school students all over the country. Besides, five months research time is too short to do further research on the research topic. However, the author hopes the study will throw light on the exploration of cooperative learning in senior high school English teaching and be of great help to most English teachers and researchers in China.