Application Of Jigsaw Teaching To The English Reading Teaching In Secondary Vocational School:An Empirical Research

In secondary vocational schools,most English teachers choose the traditional teacher-centered teaching method,i.e.cramming.What's more,secondary vocational school students are not good in English and most of them also lack intrinsic motivation and interest in learning English reading.In addition,they don't need to bear the pressure of college entrance examination as ordinary high school students do.Thus,the traditional teaching method does not fit the secondary vocational school students well,which results in low efficiency of English reading class and poor learning performance of the students.Therefore,it is imperative to use new effective teaching methods to improve the current English reading class in secondary vocational schools.Cooperative learning theory,as a new pedagogical theory,has been paid more and more attention by educational institutions.As the practical application of the cooperative learning theory,Jigsaw teaching has already been widely used in foreign countries for many years.It is a strikingly different teaching method:the Jigsaw teaching class takes students as the learning center,introduces group cooperation,creates a relaxing classroom atmosphere and focuses on cultivating students' autonomous learning and cooperation abilities.In recent years many scholars and experts in China have also applied Jigsaw teaching to their English teaching practice,but the researches on the application of Jigsaw teaching in secondary vocational schools are far from adequate.Therefore,this paper applies Jigsaw teaching to the English reading class in a secondary vocational school to explore whether Jigsaw teaching has positive effects on the students' reading performance.This paper focuses on the following two issues:1.Does Jigsaw teaching have any effect on students' reading motivation in the English reading class in secondary vocational schools?If so,in what way?2.Does Jigsaw teaching in English reading class in secondary vocational schools have any effect on students' reading achievement?If so,what's the difference compared with traditional reading instruction?In order to answer these questions,this research used questionnaires,tests and interviews as the research tools,and took 94 students from two third-grade classes of a secondary vocational school in Wuxi as the research objects.The study lasted 16 weeks.SPSS21.0 and Excel were used to analyze the text and questionnaire results,while the interview results were summarized and collated.The results of the experiment show that the students in the experimental class of Jigsaw teaching have higher English reading motivation and better reading performance in the post-test than the students in the control class.In other words,Jigsaw teaching can stimulate students' learning motivation and improve their learning achievement better than the traditional teaching method.This result provides a new insight into the reform of English reading teaching in secondary vocational schools.