A Research On Cooperative Learning In Senior English Reading Teaching

English reading teaching plays a very important role in senior English teaching. The present syllabus and curriculum standard demand that students in Chinese middle school should develop and improve the ability of reading .It has become particularly important to help the students solve or alleviate the problem of reading learning. Major reviews of cooperative learning research have shown that cooperative learning can increase the opportunities to intake comprehensible inputs and product functional output in a supportive and communicative environment, thus making language learning move a step forward.The present paper introduces cooperative learning and its application in senior English reading, which is based on the analysis of the current status of reading teaching and learning. 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. Questionnaires and interviews are used in the paper to investigate the students' reading learning strategies and the status. And two classes in Senior Grade One are chosen to be the subjects in the teaching experiment. From March 2007 to July 2007, Class 2 took part in the research as the Experimental Class working in small groups and with cooperative learning as the principal teaching approach. A pre-test, amid-test and a post-test were conducted to find out changes in students' English language proficiency and their reading ability. The SPSS statistical software is used for analyzing the data from the experiment on the relation between reading ability and English language proficiency. A series of research findings is won. The purpose of the study is achieved.This paper consists of five parts. The first part starts with a brief introduction to the importance of reading in learning English and the currents status of reading learning followed by the purpose and significance of the study; the second part reviews the previous studies in this regard at home and abroad; the third part presents the definition for the concepts of cooperative learning , theoretical basis of the cooperative learning ,elements and the power of cooperative learning and benefits of cooperative learning ; the fourth part introduces the methodology adopted in the present study and describes the process of the study, the data analysis and the result of the study; the fifth part concerns itself with the discussion about the findings obtained from the present study and points out the limitations and suggestions for further research.