A Study Of The Effectiveness Of Cooperative Learning In Chinese Secondary EFL Reading Instruction

Reading has long been acknowledged as a crucial part of senior high school Englishteaching, which is known to every teacher. However, the present situation of the teaching isfar from satisfactory. One of the reasons is that senior high school students lack the interestand motivation to learn. They learn English for anyone but themselves. This thesis tries toadopt cooperative learning methods for the following purposes:1. To improve EFL reading proficiency of the learners at different levels.2. To strengthen the learners’ motivation for EFL reading.3. To enhance the learners’ social skills.Two Senior One classes, altogether72students, at Soochow University High Schoolare involved. The major findings are as follows:1. Cooperative learning improves senior high school students’ academicachievements in reading.2. Cooperative learning motivates senior high school students to read.3. Cooperative learning has positive effects on senior high school students’ socialskills.There are two major pedagogical implications arising from this study:1. The importance of guiding the EFL learners to focus on linguistic forms within astudent-centered cooperative learning context;2. The importance of teacher development in cooperative learning.