Effects Of Cooperative Learning On Limited Proficiency Students’ English Reading Ability

This thesis is an experimental research on effects of Cooperative Learning on limited proficiency students’English reading ability.Limited proficiency students in English learning are those who have normal intelligence and physical growth but cannot meet requirements of the English Curriculum Standard for sorts of reasons.They are generally weak in English and have difficulties in listening,speaking,reading and writing.Influenced by exam-oriented education,students do not have many opportunities to think critically,or to communicate and cooperate with others.They are just used to receiving knowledge passively.Dull classes make more and more limited proficiency students lose their interest in English reading and learning.However,reading as a main approach of language input is very crucial for any foreign language learners.Meanwhile,students’ability of speaking,listening and writing should be improved by promoting reading ability.So according to the current teaching situation,it is urgent to reform teaching method,and improve limited proficiency students’reading interest and reading ability.Cooperative Learning is a typical learner-oriented teaching approach,which was developed in America in the 1970s.In Cooperative Learning,various group activities can provide students with more opportunities of language input and functional output,which can better arouse students’interest in learning.So the author wants to adopt Cooperative Learning to English reading class in order to transform limited proficiency students,promoting their interest of English reading and then improving their English reading ability and academic achievement.The subjects of the research were 60 limited proficiency students of first-grade students from No.4 High School of Luohe,Henan Province.They were from Class 8 and Class 9taught by the author.Class 8 was taken as the experimental class adopting Cooperative Learning and Class 9 as the control class adopting the traditional teaching method.The research was conducted from October 6^th,2016 to January 17^th,2017 lasting 16 weeks.The author attempts to answer the following two questions:1)what are the effects of Cooperative Learning on limited proficiency students’English reading ability?2)What are the effects of Cooperative Learning on limited proficiency students’attitude towards English reading and learning?Firstly,the author chose out 30 limited proficiency students from each class according to their first monthly examination.Whose English scores below 90（150 in all）were chosen out to be the subjects.Through analyzing the results by SPSS,the author found that there was no significant difference between limited proficiency students of EC and CC.So,it is feasible to conduct the research.Then a pre-questionnaire about students’reading interest,reading ability,class performance,etc.was conducted into EC and CC to know the limited proficiency students’reading situation.After that,the author began to do the experiment in EC and CC.Finally,to know students’learning effects after one semester,the post-test and post-questionnaire were conducted at the end of the experiment.What’s more,to get more detailed information,the author interviewed 8 limited proficiency students of EC.After analyzing the collected data,some major findings are as follows:1)Limited proficiency students’reading ability and reading achievement have been improved after Cooperative Learning.In the experimental class,the mean of the pre-test is14.47 and the mean of the post-test is 17.44.Limited proficiency students’average reading score has been improved by 2.867.While,in the control class,the mean of the pre-test is14.33 and the mean of the post-test is 14.80.Only 0.467 point has been improved.Besides,after the analysis of Paired Sample Test,the sig.（2-talied）of EC is 0.030<0.05,which means there is a significant difference between the two tests.While the sig.（2-tailed）of CC is 0.282>0.05,that is to say,the traditional teaching method is not effective in improving limited proficiency students’reading ability.2)Limited proficiency students’attitudes towards English reading and learning have been positively changed,especially their reading interest has been improved a lot.Before the experiment,over half of limited proficiency students were not interested in English reading and 64%of them could not concentrate during the class.After the experiment,77%of limited proficiency students are interested in English reading and 75%of them participate in classroom activities actively.They prefer Cooperative Learning teaching method and hope that it could be used in other subjects.Obviously,there are some limitations in the study,such as inadequate subjects and limited time.However,it achieves the research objectives and proves that the application of Cooperative Learning to English reading classes can have a positive effect on transforming limited proficiency students’English reading ability.