Impact of Cooperative Learning on Developing EFL Secondary School Learners’Language Skills,Particularly Reading Comprehension Skills

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the effect of using cooperative learning in developing secondary school EFL learners’reading comprehension skills. To this end, 52 first-year students at Al-Ganitat secondary school for girls, Umbada Locality, Khartoum state were chosen. They were divided into a control group and an experimental group according to their marks in apre-reading test,designed to measure the learners’reading abilities.Then the control group learners were taught by whole class teaching while the experimental group learners were taught by means of cooperative learning for ten-weeks.For data collection the researcher used classroom observation, two tests and two questionnaires. Classroom observation showed that learners encounter difficulties such as recognizing new words, using cohesive devices, answering comprehension questions…etc. In addition the marks of the post t-test for the two groups were also compared statistically by T test.The P-value (0.020) of T-test was less than significant level (0.05), that means there was statistical difference between the experimental & the control group in the posttest for the experimental one. This shows that using cooperative learning is an effective technique in developing EFL learners’ reading comprehension skills .Moreover, the questionnaires’ analysis showed that both teachers and learners have positive attitudes towards cooperative learning.Cosequently it is recommended to consider cooperative learning as a basic technique in teaching English language.