The Action Research Of Senior 3 English Reading Research

With the globalization of economy and the frequent communication between international societies, English has become an important bridge between people in different countries. People in the 21st century must have a good command of English. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are four important language skills, among which reading is the core. Through reading people can absorb knowledge, broaden horizon, enlarge vocabulary and develop the ability to think. Therefore how to develop students'reading ability has always been an important issue in EFL teaching.But the current situation of Senior 3 students'reading ability is far from satisfactory. Some students cannot finish reading the article within the assigned time, other students cannot really understand the article even if they know every word in it, and still others like reading articles word by word, instead of grasping the main idea on the whole. Quite a few students lack the basic reading skills such as the application of background knowledge and proper reading strategies etc. In addition to this, the teaching of reading in Senior 3 also needs improving. Due to the limited time and too much teaching contents, the majority of teachers seldom provide students with specific reading guidance. They just ask students to do reading comprehension by themselves and the explanation of the reading passages is always in the form of translation, which more or less affects the effectiveness of reading comprehension.Under the guidance of relevant reading theories, the research, based on classroom observation, aims to improve the teaching of reading in Senior 3 through action research. This paper attempts to explore an effective way to, get students familiar with the different structures and styles of reading, help them grasp the basic reading strategies and develop good reading habits. The research also aims to develop students'reading ability and help them know how to get information through reading, which will lay a solid foundation for their future development.In the first stage of the action, the research discovers the problems in the reading class by way of classroom observation and the research also uses questionnaire, interviews, and pre-test comprehension to find students'puzzles and difficulties in reading. Then, the research makes a 16-week action plan to improve students'reading ability in vocabulary, discourse analysis, and reading strategies etc. During this period, teaching log is kept to record how teachers adjust the action plan according to students'feedback and how teachers organize the reading lessons under the guidance of reading theories. In the last stage of the action, the research conducts the questionnaire again, compares the result with the former one, collects students'written feedback and post-tests reading comprehension. All these efforts have proved that such an action research does improve students' vocabulary, enhance their discourse awareness and help them know how to guess unknown words through context and apply proper reading strategies.In the action research, students have enhanced their confidence in reading comprehension. They know how to use different reading strategies according to the different styles of the passages. They have learned to use background knowledge to help themselves to understand the passages and can better analyze the paragraph structure and the logical connection between sentences so that it's easier for them to understand the writer's purpose. An effective reading lesson can promote students'reading ability. When teachers make a teaching plan, they must be students-oriented and cater for the students' needs. As long as teachers select the proper material and design appropriate reading tasks, students are sure to make progress in reading comprehension.