An Empirical Study Of The Influence Of Jigsaw ? On Junior High School Students' English Classroom Anxiety

As a kind of cooperative learning method,jigsaw ? is like a jigsaw puzzle without lacking any pieces.Jigsaw ? emphasizes the "expert group" as well as the original group.In the "expert group",students focus on learning a certain part and become experts in this part.In the original group,students instruct each other and master the whole task.Plenty of studies have proved that jigsaw can promote students' foreign language achievements.Foreign language anxiety is regarded as one of the most influential affective factors,so the present study applies jigsaw ? to English class in junior high school,aiming to explore the influence of jigsaw ? on junior high school students' English classroom anxiety.The present study mainly answers the following two questions:(1)What is the current situation of junior high school students' English classroom anxiety in the traditional teacher-centered approach?(2)What's the influence of jigsaw ? on junior high school students' English classroom anxiety?The subjects of the study are chosen from Class Nine and Class Ten Grade Eight,in Shenzhen Shiyan Public School.Class Nine is the experimental class applying jigsaw ? and Class Ten is the control class using the traditional teacher-centered approach that instructors teach and students listen to instructors.Besides,in order to investigate different-proficiency students' English classroom anxiety and the influence of jigsaw ? on different-proficiency students' English classroom anxiety,the author divides the subjects into high-proficiency students,intermediate-proficiency students and low-proficiency students,based on English achievements of three tests in the first semester,an oral English test and the English instructor's suggestions.In order to collect more valid data,the study adopts quantitative and qualitative analyses.The quantitative analyses include the English classroom anxiety questionnaires and English tests before experiment and after experiment.In terms of qualitative analyses,the interview and students' diaries are used.By one-semester teaching experiment,the English classroom anxiety questionnaires,English tests,the interview,and students' diaries,the author collects and analyzes the data in detail,then summarizes the following findings.Firstly,junior high school students experience relatively high English classroom anxiety.Besides,with regard to three-proficiency students,intermediate-proficiency students score the highest English classroom anxiety.The following is low-proficiency students,and high-proficiency students score the lowest English classroom anxiety.In addition,in terms of the four dimensions,fear of negative evaluation ranks the first.The next highest is communication apprehension,followed by test anxiety.The lowest anxiety is English attitude anxiety.Secondly,three-proficiency students have significant differences in English attitude anxiety and test anxiety.However,with respect to fear of negative evaluation,there is no significant difference between intermediate-proficiency students and low-proficiency students.As for communication apprehension,high-proficiency students and low-proficiency students have no significant difference.Thirdly,jigsaw ? can significantly alleviate three-proficiency students' English classroom anxiety in junior high school.Intermediate-proficiency students' English classroom anxiety decreases the most.The following is high-proficiency students'English classroom anxiety and low-proficiency students' English classroom anxiety.Fourthly,with the decrease of students' English classroom anxiety,jigsaw ?promotes students' English achievements significantly.Low-proficiency students make the most progress and intermediate-proficiency students have a significant increase.Even if high-proficiency students' English achievements change insignificantly,it is increased.The findings of the research indicate that jigsaw ? can significantly alleviate junior high school students' English classroom anxiety and promote junior high school students' English achievements.Hence,jigsaw ? is beneficial to junior high school students ' English learning.