Jigsaw模式在英语阅读教学中的个案研究

论文总字数：35410字

摘 要

在大力倡导合作学习的今天，Jigsaw模式由于有助于激发学生学习的热情，培养学生的合作精神，被广泛地应用于各类课程的教学活动之中。本文通过Jigsaw模式在英语阅读课堂中的个案研究及课后反馈，总结了Jigsaw模式的优势，并探讨了应用该模式过程中可能会出现的一些问题和注意事项,从而今后更好地运用此模式提高英语阅读教学成果。

关键词：Jigsaw模式；英语阅读；个案研究

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Jigsaw mode 1

2.2 Previous studies on English reading teaching 3

3. Case Study: Specific Use of Jigsaw Mode in English Reading Class 4

3.1 Research question and subjects 4

3.2 Research procedure 5

3.3 Research results 6

3.4 Feedback and reflection 7

4. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

AppendixⅠ The reading material 16

AppendixⅡ The questionnaire 18

1. Introduction

Of the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), reading occupies an important and indispensable position. In the process of English reading teaching, as a teacher, we shouldn’t simply ask the students to get the main idea of the article or grasp the language points; more important is to guide students to use some strategies and skills to improve their reading abilities and levels of understanding, to cultivate students’ independent learning ability and their team spirits in cooperation. So the current English reading teaching needs reform and implementing cooperative learning is necessary. Jigsaw mode is an effective cooperative learning which stimulates students’ enthusiasm and their spirit of cooperation to get all the information of the reading materials.

Through the case study of Jigsaw mode in English reading class, the author aims to give more effective guidance to students in English reading, train the abilities of students’ self-learning and cooperative learning. Besides, the ultimate goal of this paper is to prove that the Jigsaw mode can be better applied in English teaching through feedback and reflections, thus further improving the English reading teaching.

In this paper, the author shall first briefly introduce the origin and development of the Jigsaw mode, followed by the theoretical background and basic steps of the Jigsaw mode. Then a specific case study of the Jigsaw mode applied in an English reading classroom will be shown, and in the next section the feedback and reflections will be discussed. Finally, the author will end the paper with a summary of the use of the Jigsaw mode.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Jigsaw mode

2.1.1 The origin and development of Jigsaw mode

The Jigsaw mode, originally developed by the famous American educator and sociologist Elliot Aronson and his colleagues in 1978 in Austin, Texas, was considered an effective kind of cooperative learning which is student-centered. At that time, United States had just released the apartheid system, students from different ethnic groups simultaneously appeared in the same classroom for the first time. However, long-term national estrangement caused the lack of communication and trust among the students of different races, thus it was difficult for the students to get along well and sometimes they were even hostile towards each other, which turned the normal teaching activities into a chaos. In this case, Aronson and his colleagues pioneered the Jigsaw classroom teaching mode, successfully established a harmonious learning atmosphere of mutual dependence and cooperation among students. Since then, this Jigsaw mode has been gradually promoted and widely used from elementary school, high school to college, from language to other disciplines.

Slavin, R. E further developed and improved Jigsaw and put forward the modification of Jigsaw on the basis of the original mode, which are widely used in the teaching and research in various disciplines. Later on, Holliday, Dwight. C made revision and improvement of Jigsaw through focusing on the student’s accuracy of mastering knowledge. （Holliday 2000: 178）

In general, materials to be learned are divided into several parts with guiding questions. Students work in four- or five-member team. Each student in a group is assigned to focus on one part of the materials. After the reading, students in different groups with the same focus of learning materials form an expert group to discuss the materials. After the discussion task in the expert group, each member becomes expert of the materials on which he or she focuses, and takes turns to teach the other members in the same group until they have mastered all the materials. Then students take individual quizzes, which result in team scores based on the improvement score system of Student Teams-Achievement Division (STAD). The group with the highest average group improvement score receives a group reward. And any group which has its average group improvement score reaching a pre-determined level can receive a group reward. (Slavin 1995: 195)

2.1.2 Theoretical background of Jigsaw mode

Jigsaw is a puzzle game which is to divide a complete pattern into several small pieces, and then the player completes the pattern according to certain ideas. The Jigsaw mode is the comprehensive application of task-based approach, cooperative teaching and communicative teaching method.

Cooperative learning is one of the mainstream theories of teaching, and it was originated in the United States in the early 1970s. As a way of cooperative learning, Jigsaw mode can stimulate students’ enthusiasm and their spirit of cooperation. Students become less dependent on the teacher, and get used to helping and learning from each other. (Shengqunli, 2006: 28)

Constructivism theory also provides a solid theoretical basis for the implementation of the Jigsaw mode. As a new branch of the learning theory of cognitive school, constructivism theory became popular in the West in the 1980s. Constructivism theory holds that knowledge is constructed by learners themselves, not taught by others. Constructivism theory emphasizes student-centered, students turn from passive recipients of knowledge into the main body of the active information processing and construction of meaning. The teachers’ role is to set proper learning situations, encourage students to reflect, and help students to construct the sense of knowledge. (Changjianruo, 2006: 79-80)

2.2 Previous studies on English reading teaching

The traditional opinions regard reading as a passive (bottom-up) decoding process. It is considered that “meaning is embodied in the text and the reader can extract the meaning from the print if he understands it letter by letter and word by word.” (Goodman 1988: 44) This bottom-up model of reading often results in word-to-word reading and causes miscomprehension.

A different view from Bottom-up model holds that “in teaching reading, the teacher should teach the background knowledge first so that students equipped with such knowledge will be about to guess meaning from the printed page.” (Rumelhart 1988 : 47) In this view, students do not pay attention to words but use their past experiences to predict meaning as they read. Obviously, this top-down model often easily leads to “wild guessing” and misunderstanding.

A more balanced view holds reading as an active process, or to be more exact, an interactive process. The interactive view of reading considers the importance of both the written text and the background knowledge in English reading teaching. Therefore, the interactive view is said to be “most applicable to reading instruction” (Heilman 1990: 226).

In recent years, there are many reforms and researches about middle school English reading teaching. However, the bottom-up model still dominates in English reading teaching. This model only pays attention to grammar, word and phrases. The result of this teaching is that students can understand the surface meaning of the articles but can not achieve the real reading object. In this traditional teacher-centered teaching mode, the students’ subjectivity is suppressed and can’t be brought into full play, which tends to make the traditional classroom teaching dull and tedious and the students’ reading abilities can’t be improved.

As a kind of mode which corresponds to the interactive view of reading, jigsaw mode can stimulate students’ interest and enhance the students’ classroom participation; it is also conducive to the establishment of good relationship between teachers and students and the development of students’ communicative competence and their ability of cooperation.

There are more literatures on the theoretical studies of English reading teaching．However, few are related with jigsaw mode used in English reading teaching. As a kind of effective cooperative learning, jigsaw mode has obvious advantages that the traditional teaching method can’t compare with. The author intends to prove whether jigsaw mode can be effectively applied in English reading teaching through a case study.

3. Case Study: Specific Use of Jigsaw Mode in English Reading Class

3.1 Research question and subjects

By using Jigsaw mode in this reading lesson, the research question is to find whether the Jigsaw mode can help students better understand the contents, arouse their interest in English reading class, and develop and optimize the students’ abilities of self-study and cooperative learning.

The research subjects are 60 grade nine students with different English proficiency. They are curious, active and fond of game and various activities. They enjoy learning through cooperation in a relaxing atmosphere. The reading material, Hollywood’s all-time best—Audrey Hepburn, is a little difficult for them to fully understand due to unfamiliar words and expressions. The author made 30 students join the Jigsaw mode and other 30 students just learned by themselves.

3.2 Research procedure

Step 1 Mini-lecture

The author allotted five minutes to explain the topic and structure of the text to students. The reading material, Hollywood’s all-time best—Audrey Hepburn (see Appendix I), is the reading part of Unit 5 from the 9A of Fun with English (Yilin-Oxford edition). The topic of this lesson is the lifetime of Audrey Hepburn. The main body of the text is composed of five parts: Audrey Hepburn’s early time before being a star; a great beauty; a great actress; a great humanitarian and Audrey Hepburn’s last days.

Step 2 Forming Original Group and Assigning Tasks

The author divided the 30 students into six groups, each group of five people numbered with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The author had each student in a group focusing on one part of the material. The task of the same number of the students in each group is the same. The author allotted five minutes for them to read and learn on their own. Students are made to realize that they are responsible for the success or failure of everyone on their team.

The specific circumstances are shown in the following table.

Table 1. The tasks of each member of the groups

Step 3 Expert Group Discussion

The students with the same numbers in each group gathered together and formed an expert group to discuss the materials that they focused on. Students were required to go through their task of the text together until they are all satisfied that they understand it and can explain it to others. The author informed the groups that it is the task of everyone in the expert group to ensure that everyone else in that group thoroughly understands what they read. The author also emphasized that each member of the groups can explain all the vocabulary and phrases and should try to retell their reading material as possible as they can. For this part, the author allotted ten minutes.

Step 4 Original Group Discussion

After the discussion, each member became expert of the materials on which he/she focused, and then they went back to their original groups and took turns to teach the other members in the same group their reading part until they have mastered it. The author encouraged them to ask their group members questions when they have any puzzles. Students were given ten minutes in this part.

Step 5 Testing

1. Ask students to retell the text to their partners and then ask the representatives of each group to retell the text. The total score is 10. The author scored the students’ performance in their oral reports.

2. Ask students to finish the two exercises that the author designed on the paper, and then check the answers with the students and mark the scores. The scores of the two exercises are 20.

3.3 Research results

The aim of Jigsaw mode is to bring all members’ potentials to full play in the process of cooperation. The core of cooperative teaching is making students accomplish a mutual goal via group work. Because the Jigsaw reading was conducted by students in the form of cooperative learning, the assessment of students’ performances should be based on the collective performance.

The total scores of the two tests are 30. The author calculated the average scores of the students involved in the Jigsaw mode and the students who learned by themselves. The result is shown in the following table.

Table 2. Average scores

According to the result of the test, the students involved in the Jigsaw mode achieved higher scores than students in the normal group. Most students in the Jigsaw mode can retell the text in general and they can finish their exercises quickly and successfully. The Jigsaw mode provides a good way for group members to learn new content and also provides an opportunity for group members to teach each other what they have learned.

The atmosphere is relaxing and students are completely involved. The Jigsaw mode arouses their interest in English reading class.

The students’ responsibilities are to work on the assigned tasks as a cooperative group in this reading class of Jigsaw mode. The Jigsaw mode develops and optimizes the students’ abilities of self-study and cooperative learning.

3.4 Feedback and reflection

This Specific Use of Jigsaw Mode in English Reading Class is a kind of learning teaching. Learning teaching is a desire to move forward, to keep learning from what is happening. It involves feedback from others and from ourselves about what happened. It involves reflection on what happened, together with an excitement about trying a slightly different option next time.

3.4.1 Feedback

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