A Study Of The Reading-based English Teaching In Senior Middle School

Reading helps one learn more about the world. In English study, reading is a very effective method to master the English language and improve the learner's linguistic competence. For nearly one century scholars both at home and abroad have been making great efforts on the research about the nature of English reading, its psychological process, and its reading patterns and strategies. Great progress has been made in certain fields.In China's senior middle school, reading has always been the aim of English teaching. At the same time reading is the most convenient way to master the English language and to help to improve other language skills such as listening, speaking and writing. But in the countryside, there are not enough experienced English teachers and the students don't have as good English learning environment as the students in the city. So their reading comprehension is still poor and their ability of applying the English language is not as good as the students in the city. On this background, the author of the thesis attempts to seek an effective English teaching method especially appropriate for the senior middle school in the countryside.The present article is made up of five Chapters.The first chapter reviews the reading theories, including the definition of reading, the process of reading, schema theory. In the meanwhile, a brief introduction is given to the relationship between reading and three other English language skills, listening, speaking and writing.The second chapter is a survey of the students' English learning and the teachers' teaching in the countryside, aiming to get a general picture of English teaching and learning, especially relevant to English reading there. The results shows that(1) Nearly all of the teachers admit the importance of reading in the English leaning but a large portion of the students fail to realize its importance.(2) The students in question lack good English leaning environment.(3) Their reading comprehension is not so good, because they don't have enough vocabulary, can't understand the sentence structure, or fail to grasp necessary reading strategies and the background related to the text.In the third chapter, the author, based on the survey and analysis in the second chapter puts forward a new type of senior English teaching method - the reading-based senior English teaching method. The author also analyses the possibility and relates the characteristics of the teaching method in this chapter.The fourth chapter contributes to the reading-based English teaching experiment. The concrete procedures are composed of the following:(1) Arousing the students' English reading motives and interests through extensive reading out of class. Help them realize the importance of English reading.(2) Establishing English reading corner to improve English leaning atmosphere.(3) Helping the students posses the necessary reading strategies which can facilitate their reading comprehension.(4 ) Improving the students' three other English language skills and the ability to communicate with others through reading in and out of class.The fifth chapter provides some implications the experiment has brought us.The result of the experiment shows that the reading-based English teaching method can improve the senior school students' English as a whole. To be more exact, this method not only helps enhance student' reading directly but also brings positive effect for their writing. As for what the effects are and how the effects are taken in practice, much leaves to be done in the future practical teaching study.