| English reading is the main channel of language input and the main means of obtaining information,and it is an important factor affecting foreign language learning.Through reading,learners can improve our thinking ability,language ability,and cultural awareness.The New Curriculum Standard（2017）proposes to improve students’ comprehensive quality,develop core competences and enable students to have the ability of independent development and communication.Therefore,how to improve students’ reading ability,reading interest and reading initiative through effective methods in senior high school English teaching is always the topic that English teachers and scholars have been discussed.As a new and creative way of learning,cooperative learning has attracted the attention of more and more teachers and scholars.Student Teams Achievement Divisions（STAD）,a cooperative learning model,was proposed by Professor Slavin and colleagues.As a new model characterized by independent exploration and cooperative communication,it plays an important role in talent training and has a certain impact on improving students’ autonomy and communication ability.This paper systematically explains and discusses Student Teams Achievement Divisions cooperative learning model,and combs the research results of this method,cooperative learning and the combination of STAD and English teaching.The study was completed based on constructivist theory,zone of proximal development theory,social psychology and cognitive psychology.This study takes 95 students who from two parallel classes（classes 10 and 8）of grade one in SS senior high school in Xining,Qinghai Province as the research subject,and carries out teaching experiment for a semester,which mainly answers the following three questions:（1）What is the current situation of English reading teaching in the SS Senior High School in Xining?（2）How does this model influence students’ English reading grades? Is there any significant difference in its influence on high,average and low performing students?（3）How do students view the impact of STAD on their English reading?In the study,the experimental class（class 10）and the control class（Class 8）use the same teaching materials,the experimental class adopts STAD and the control class adopts PWP model.This experiment uses three tools: questionnaire,interview and test.Each tool is used twice before and after the experiment.The two questionnaires were mainly used to understand the state of students’ cooperative learning and their attitude towards English reading,as well as the changes before and after the experiment;as a supplement to the questionnaire and test the author randomly selected 6 students（3boys and 3 girls）of the experimental class from different performing levels and the teacher who take part in the research;the pre-test data comes from the reading part of the students’ first examination of this semester,and the post-test is the reading part of the subjects’ final examination.After the data is collected,it is described and analyzed by SPSS 19.0 software.The study found that: 1)before the experiment,students’ English reading teaching was teacher-centered.Students had a certain interest in reading,but they were not strong,and they were tired of the old teaching model and had little initiative.2)After the experiment,on the part of English reading,the average score of students in the experimental class after using STAD in their English reading class is significantly higher than that of students in the control class,which proves that the use of STAD has a positive impact on students’ reading performance,and the students with poor grades made the most progress.3)At the last stage of the experiment,the author investigated the subjects through post-questionnaire and post-interview,and found that this model can stimulate students’ learning interest,initiative and enthusiasm in learning English reading.This shows the effectiveness of STAD in teaching English Reading in senior high school.Combined with the background of the new curriculum reform,this study explores the effectiveness of STAD in senior high school English reading,and tries to construct this model in line with teaching practice.The results of this study can be used as a reference for senior high school English reading class.However,due to the short experimental cycle and the small sample size,the research still has deficiencies.Therefore,the author puts forward some suggestions at the end of the paper for the further research in the future. |
