An Application Of Jigsaw Method To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

Reading,a main part of English teaching in senior high school,is one of the four basic techniques that students need to acquire.It has an essential role in English learning.The new curriculum reform puts forward that the teachers should pay attention to cultivate students' sense of cooperation and concentrate on improving their abilities in cooperation.However,the traditional teacher-centered teaching of reading frequently overlooks the cultivation of the students' cooperation ability.Jigsaw method is an efficient method of cooperative teaching,which may bring about some changes when being applied to English reading classroom.In view of this,the research is aimed to investigate the application of Jigsaw method in English reading classroom.The aim is broken down into the following three questions.(1)What are senior students' English learning attitudes toward applying Jigsaw method in class?(2)Can Jigsaw method improve the four reading comprehension abilities of students in senior high schools?(3)How can Jigsaw method be applied effectively in English reading teaching in local senior high schools?In light of the theories of Cooperative Learning and Constructivism,questionnaire,interview and experiment are adopted to explore the above questions.First,with reference to the students' English scores of the final exam in Senior One,two parallel classes,Class 7and Class 8,are chosen as the research subjects.The subjects are 96 students in Senior Two from Wuwei No.1 Middle School,Gansu Province.One is assigned as experimental class(using Jigsaw teaching method)and the other is assigned as controlled class(using traditional teaching method).Both of the experimental class and the controlled class are granted the same number of English teaching tasks,with the uniform teaching content organized by the same teacher.Before the experiment,the pretest on English reading ability reveals that there is no significant difference in students' reading ability between the experimental class and the controlled class.After a period of 16 weeks of teachingexperiment,the post-test on students' English reading ability is conducted in the experimental class and controlled class.In addition,the questionnaire is handed out to the experimental class to identify their English learning attitudes toward Jigsaw method and eight students of them are interviewed to retrieve further information.The research data are collected and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.The data elicited with the help of SPSS 17.0 suggest that Jigsaw method is helpful to improve the four reading comprehension abilities of senior high school students: the ability to summarize the main idea of a text,the ability to understand details and facts,the ability to infer and judge,and the ability to paraphrase difficult expressions.In addition,the questionnaire and interview results show that Jigsaw method applied to reading teaching has many advantages,such as making students hold optimistic and positive learning attitudes,making them willing to share and adept to communicate,making their reading interest increased,along with the great improvement of interpersonal skills and cooperative ability.Finally,based on the teaching experiment and theoretical reflection,a mode of applying Jigsaw method for English reading teaching in local senior high schools is put forward: Preparation before class—Reading-guidance activities—Task assigning—Expertgroup discussion—Expert-group quizzes—Home-group reporting— Inspection on reading effect — Assessment and feedback.The thesis is ended with a description of the implementation of Jigsaw method in other pedagogical situations.