How to Improve Senior High School Students最新稿.doc

毕业论文(设计)How to Improve Senior High School Students Reading Abilities by Cooperative Learning1. Introduction22. The new requirements on high school students reading abilities32.1 The importance of reading32.2 The current situation of high school English teaching42.2.1 The existing problems in English teaching42.2.2 The changes of teaching approaches and teachers roles52.2.3 The characteristics of the text materials63. Cooperative learning (CL)73.1 The definition of cooperative learning73.2 Elements of cooperative learning83.3 Advantages of cooperative learning123.3.1 Developing learners autonomy123.3.2 Increasing self-confidence and self-esteem133.3.3 Increasing Motivation133.3.4 Developing learners interpersonal competence143.3.5 Cultivating a sense of cooperation154. Modern methods of cooperative learning154.1 Jigsaw164.2 Learning together175. Cooperative learning groups185.1 Forming groups185.1.1 The differences between cooperative learning groups and typical groups185.2 Team policies195.2.1 Role assignments195.2.2 Encouragements205.2.3 Dealing with non-cooperative team members.205.3 How to improve reading ability by cooperative learning215.3.1 Preview215.3.2 Vocabulary225.3.3 Prereading235.3.4 While-reading245.3.5 Extensive reading groups246. Problems and suggestions256.1 Hitchhikers256.2 Timeconsuming256.3 Disputes between lowachievers and high-achievers257. Conclusion26References271. IntroductionStepping into expanded information times, English as a tool of communication has been playing a more significant role for collecting worldwide information and carrying out international exchanges and cooperation, which has been set high requirements on ones English ability in particular reading ability. Reading is one of the fourth basic skills of English. However, in senior high schools, the situation of students reading ability is far from being satisfactory.For many students, they are afraid of reading and most of them show little interests in reading for the English reading is too boring and tedious to attract their attentions. In traditional reading class, the students are just passive to listen, take notes and then recite what they have written down. They lack autonomic learning for no time was left for themselves to think what they have learned in teacherdominant class. In order to search for a right way to solve the problem, numerous teachers have been devoted themselves to search for an effective teaching method to improve students reading abilities. One of the favorable methods is cooperative learning.Cooperative learning is an old educational view and practice. In China, it began as early as 2000 years ago when the famous educational masterpiece Xueji (2007: 227) says: “Studying alone leads to ignorance and being illinformed.” But it was initiated by American scholars in 1970s, and made concrete progress and created a series of teaching theory and study strategy, which was widely used by other countries including China in 1990s. Actually, the nature of cooperative learning is group work and mutual help among group mates.As the increasing important role of reading, numbers of educators resorted to cooperative learning to improve students reading ability and made great achievements.In cooperative learning, students do not scare of teachers authority, nor feel anxious about failure. They can learn the text easily and keep longer memory from talking about a subject, explaining an idea to other students in groups, which make English learning more active and effective. They can get mutual help from each other, develop great communicative skills, produce selfrespect and selfworth, which is positively related to individuals grades and even promote them to study harder. 2. The new requirements on high school students reading abilities2.1 The importance of readingReading is a receptive language process and is often the chief goal of learners in countries where English as learner as a second language. In China, it has been a muchemphasized course in high school learning for it plays a vital part in college entrance examination. As English is the most widely used language, through reading students can obtain huge worldwide information arranging from polity military to economy. Besides, reading provides the most efficient and the most important channel of linguistic input through which students improve their linguistic competence.In addition, reading texts provide chances to study a language: vocabulary, grammar and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and texts provide good models for English writing as well. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative response and be the springboard for interesting lessons.2.2 The current situation of high school English teaching2.2.1 The existing problems in English teachingEven though, new English teaching methods was constantly adapted, but got few effect on reading teaching. The traditional English teaching approach have been dominated for decades, most teachers overemphasized on learning grammars, language points, like a spoonfeeder to instill knowledge into students., which made the teaching monotonous, lack vivid atmosphere. Meanwhile, students lack learning autonomy. Besides, most students are the only child of their families. The excessive caring and love from their families have made them be egocentric. Their awareness of giving and cooperation is very weak, while the personnel with giving ad cooperative quality are badly needed in modern society. As teachers, they should create more opportunities of cooperation for students to raise students teamwork spirits. Teaching English needs an atmosphere of cooperation. In this atmosphere, students learned how to deal with people, how to help each other and solve problems through cooperation. In this regard, school education shoulders most of the responsibility.2.2.2 The changes of teaching approaches and teachers rolesThe reform movements of foreign language teaching have been keeping on since the 20th century for the growing awareness of how to learn is familiar to educators. Beginning in the mid-1960s, there has been a great number of theorists seeking for innovative methods to activate students learning autonomy and become effective learners. In this situation, learnercentered method gave a upper hand as opposed to other reading teaching methods, which collectively came to be known as communicative language teaching. These CLT spinoff approaches include the natural approach, cooperative language learning, contentbased teaching and taskbased teaching. Therefore the teachers are not only the language knowledge imparter but a guider to show their students how to learn and use language. As Confucius (2007: 127) said, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” As Prator (Net.3) points out, “one method has succeeded another: grammartranslation gave way to the direct method, which was in turn followed by the reading approach. Learning began to move away from the teachers direct control and into hands of learners through the use of individualized learning, group work and project work, which can help students develop a set of workable learning techniques. Thus the teachers roles (Wang Qiang, 2005: 39) have changed as follows: Controller: The teacher controls the pace so that activities run smoothly and efficiently. In today high schools English teaching, communicative approach plays the leader role. It is believed that more communicative an activity is, the less the control that is needed. Organizer: the teachers are no longer organizing how to impart literature knowledge but to organize more learning activities. Nowadays many approaches and methods advocate taskbased learning activities. So one of the teacher s major responsibilities is to design and organize tasks that students can carry out in the class; as in giving instructions for the pairwork, initiating it, monitoring it, and organizing feedback. Prompter: Studentcentered teaching methods are favorable to more teachers. When students are not sure how to start an activity, or what to do next, the teacher should give appropriate prompts to facilitate the students to think and speak, rather than disencourage them.Participant: the teachers are not always being an authority in a class. Once the teacher had finished giving instructions and the activity had started, there is no point for the teacher standing in front of the classroom doing nothing. Besides monitoring the class, the teacher can join one or two groups as an ordinary participant. 2.2.3 The characteristics of the text materialsFrom NMET 20032005, higher requirements have been set. We can easily find that the orient and the design style of these examinations have been changed a lot, and the subjects of articles are more close to actual life, of a stronger sociality, practicability, culture characteristics. And the most distinguished characteristics are the diversity, ideological content and the spirits of the times.Diversity: the contents of the materials are rich and varied, including language study, sports, cultural life, and environmental protection, the art of literature, music and film, natural science and social science. Ideological contents: the materials are aimed at being familiar with Chinese culture and foreign countries culture and helping students form healthy psychology and good natures. For example, friendship, ecological travels, cultural heritage, which facilitate students developments of the body and the mental.The spirits of the time and Internationalism: materials descript the real pictures of life on all aspects, for instance, reflecting the development of language and society, the progress of science, and the new ideas of making friends. Materials no longer just focus on one country, but the whole world.3. Cooperative learning (CL)3.1 The definition of cooperative learningMany educationists have been engaged in researches on cooperative learning. Different scholars may define cooperative learning differently.Kohonen (2007: 228) considers CL as a type of “experiential model” of learning which differs greatly from the “transmission model”. The transmission model considers the teacher the person to “impart knowledge and the skill to the learners” and students “passive recipients of knowledge”, whereas the “experiential model” highlights the experience or the process of learning in which “a learning atmosphere of shared partnership, a common purpose and a joint management of learning” might be provided.Kagan (2007: 228) holds: “CL simply means that everyone in the classroom cooperates to learn. The teachers is not the only voice heard in the classroom. Competition is de-emphasized, individual tasks take place in a “team” and cooperation is an integral part of the classroom dynamics”.Robert E. Slavin (2007: 228-229) defines cooperative learning as “instructional programs in which students work in small groups to help one another master academic content”. He adds that most of the cooperative learning methods involve students working in groups in which they are responsible not only for their own learning, but that of their fellow group members.In authors opinions, cooperative learning is a kind of teaching method which characterized by group work and interaction in cooperative groups. It emphasizes on the learnercentered status to cultivate students learning ability, social skills through group work. 3.2 Elements of cooperative learning The definitions of cooperative learning are various, while they share the following five essential elements in common, which was proposed by Johnson and Johnson (2007: 229-231).1) Positive interdependenceIt is the first and most important element in structuring cooperative learning and will be successfully structured when group members perceive that they are closely correlated with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds. Group goals and tasks, therefore, must be designed and communicated to students in ways that make them believe they sink or swim together. When positive interdependence is solidly structured, it highlights that (a) each group members efforts are required and indispensable for group success and (b) each group member has a unique contribution to make to the joint effort because of his or her resources and/or role and task responsibilities. Doing so creates a commitment to the success of group members as well as ones own and is the heart of cooperative learning. If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation.2) Promotive interaction The second basic element of cooperative learning is, preferably face-to-face. Students need to do real work together in which they promote each others success by sharing resources and helping, supporting, encouraging, and applauding each others efforts to achieve. There are important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics that can only occur when students promote each others learning. This includes orally explaining how to solve problems, teaching ones knowledge to others, checking for understanding, discussing concepts being learned, and connecting present with past learning. Each of those activities can be structured into group task directions and procedures. Doing so helps ensure that cooperative learning groups are both an academic support system (every student has someone who is committed to helping him or her learn) and a personal support system (every student has someone who is committed to him or her as a person). It is through promoting each others learning face-to-face that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.3) Individual and group accountabilityThe third one is the key element for students future progress. Two levels of accountability must be structured into cooperative lessons. The group must be accountable for achieving its goals and each member must be accountable for contributing his or her share of the work. Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in learning. The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right. Students learn together so that they subsequently can gain greater individual competency.4) Small group skills The fourth basic element of cooperative learning is teaching students the required interpersonal and. Cooperative learning is inherently more complex than competitive or individualistic learning because students have to engage simultaneously in task work (learning academic subject matter) and teamwork (functioning effectively as a group). Social skills for effective cooperative work do not magically appear when cooperative lessons are employed. Instead, social skills must be taught to students just as purposefully and precisely as academic skills. Leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills empower students to manage both teamwork and taskwork successfully. Since cooperation and conflict are inherently related (Johnson & Johnson, 1995, cited in Net.2), the procedures and skills for managing conflicts constructively are especially important for the long-term success of learning groups. Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (1991, 1993, cited in Net.2) and Johnson and F. Johnson (1994, cited in Net.2).5) Group processing The fifth basic element of cooperative learning is. Group processing exists when group members discuss how well hey are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change. Continuous improvement of the processes of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together and determining how group effectiveness can be enhanced.From the above elaboration of CL, it can be seen that CL does not mean having students sit sidebyside at the same table to talk with each other. Nor does it mean having the students who finish first help the slower ones, nor assigning a report to a group of students wherein one student does all the work and the others put their names on the product. Johnson, Johnson and Smith (2007: 231) point out, although every time the teacher assigns students to work in group, teachers who fail to include these requirements encounter more difficulties with their students and their group activities and students academic achievement gains are less.3.3 Advantages of cooperative learning3.3.1 Developing learners autonomy CL promotes selfdetermination among students, helping them to become more autonomous and selfcontrolled and less dependent upon outside authority (Boud, 2007: 261). In cooperative groups while working together, students learn greater autonomy gradually. They first rely on each other for direction and assistance, and over time, through leadership experiences in their groups, acquire greater independence in their own learning, and actively choose to use the resources of the teacher and other group members, rather than merely relying on them to get things done.They also become much more responsible for their groups learning. During their work, they build up a sense of partnership and friendship that allows them to work successfully with others in a cooperative way. They learn how to share materials as well as informati