The Effects Of Jigsaw Ⅳ On Junior High School Students’ English Reading Comprehension And Reading Anxiety

Reading is one of the language skills that stimulate the acquisition of knowledge and exchange of information in the language learning context.Reading comprehension is the ability to perceive a written text to understand its contents and it is greatly valued by foreign language learners.However,there exist some problems in the current reading teaching.For instance,current reading instruction ignores effective classroom interaction and lacks cultivation of reading strategies and cooperative spirit;Besides,as one of the negative affective state,reading anxiety harmfully impedes the improvement of reading comprehension abilities but is usually neglected by the instructors in current reading teaching practice.So,it is an urge to explore an effective reading instruction method.Jigsaw teaching method presents an innovative example of cooperative learning mode that constitutes a "paradigm shift"(Kazemi,2012)in the area of language teaching and has been applied to students at different levels in different courses nowadays,yet its outstanding merits are fully displayed and proved more advantageous than traditional reading method.The study aims at investigating the effects of Jigsaw IV on English reading comprehension and reading anxiety of junior high school students supported by cooperative learning theory and the affective filter hypothesis:1.What are the effects of Jigsaw Ⅳ teaching method on junior high school students’ English reading comprehension?2.What are the effects of Jigsaw Ⅳ teaching method on junior high school students’ English reading anxiety?3.What are the junior high school students’ perception towards implementing Jigsaw Ⅳ?Pretest-posttest comparison quasi-experimental design is adopted in this study.The current experiment lasts for 18 weeks,involving 90 junior high school students from two natural classes in a junior high school.The EC was instructed English reading with Jigsaw Ⅳ method,while the CC was taught with the mode of traditional reading instruction.After the intervention,20 students from EC were interviewed by the author.In this study,the author employs methodological triangulation to support the research design,so both quantitative and qualitative research methods are applied to examine the effectiveness of Jigsaw Ⅳ,including experimental method,scale-based testing method and semi-structured interview.Meanwhile,quantitative experimental data was analyzed through Descriptive Statistics,Independent Sample t-Test and Paired Sample t-Test with the assistance of SPSS 26.0,and qualitative results were analyzed by NVivo10.Data analysis yields the following findings:(1)After the Jigsaw intervention,the average reading score of students in EC significantly increased from 21.100 to 21.956(Paired Sample t-test,t=-2.771,sig.(2-tailed)=.008,p*<.05),statistical results show that Jigsaw Ⅳ has positive influence on junior high school students’ English reading comprehension.According to the interview,students attribute their reading comprehension abilities improvement to the causes that they can acquire deep understanding of the text,effective reading strategies,positive class engagement,peer assistance and feedback in the Jigsaw class;(2)After the Jigsaw intervention,the average reading anxiety score of students in EC significantly reduced from 2.655 to 2.557(Paired Sample t-test,t=2.465,sig.(2-tailed)=.018,p*<.05),the score of RLD reduced from 2.961 to 2.669(Paired Sample t-test,t=2.199,sig.(2-tailed)=.033,p*<.05),statistical results show that Jigsaw Ⅳ has positive influence on junior high school students’ English reading anxiety alleviation,particularly it can reduced students’ fear of difficulty.The interview suggests that students mainly attributed their anxiety reduction to the relaxing and harmonious atmosphere,harmonious teacher-student relationship and positive interaction in the Jigsaw class;(3)In terms of implementation of Jigsaw Ⅳ in class,interviewees came up some feasible suggestions,for instance,assigning group role,enhancing teacher’s supervision and reinforcing classroom discipline.Based on the above conclusion,the author puts forwards some practical suggestions to implement the Jigsaw Ⅳ and also provides the limitations so as to give some implications for future research.